Shaharah, Yemen

We headed into the old city to meet our tour guide for a trip to Shaharah. We travelled in a 4x4 vehicle and were joined by Vic from Austria. The tour did not start well as the young driver / guide forgot to copy the travel permits so were turned back by the police at the first checkpoint and had to hang around for an hour or so. None of us were impressed by his loud wailing music either as we couldn't talk to each other.

Some time out of San'a we were joined by another tour group of Russians and a police escort. The police pick-up had 2 officers inside and about 8 on the back of the pick-up. They had a mounting in the back of the vehicle for a machine gun that one of the guys toted around proudly on his shoulder. The rest of the men were armed with Kalishnikovs and their cheeks were bulging with wads of qat. We had one policeman in our vehicle and there was one with the Russian group.

Since 2003 North Yemen has a group of fighters who are anti-government. They feel the government is too pro-western. These two groups battle from time to time so the police escort was necessary for us. There have been several incidents of kidnapping of foreigners.

This part of the country is under the control of tribal leaders or sheiks. Victor tells us that the people who are kidnapped are treated like kings as the tribes want to draw international attention to their issues.

We stopped at a village restaurant for lunch and got to meet the Russian group and their guide from Uzbekistan. At lunch we learned we had to pay for the escort group as well as their qat and their lunch. For lunch we had mutton broth soup, cabbage salad, salta- a meat stew with lentils, spices and fenugreek. We had no cutlery and had to use the flat bread to scoop everything up in order to eat it. This was followed by very very sweet black mint tea.

We arrived at a small village in a Bedouin area and had to pick up a Bedouin guide as well. The Bedouin would not allow our 4x4 vehicle to continue up the steep mountain road to Shaharah so we had to have another driver and a wreck of a 4x4 vehicle to continue our journey.

The steep road to the village above the valley was dusty, rocky and bumpy. John and the guide sat on the back while Vic and I were inside. About one kilometre from the top of the mountain and the village of Shaharah the road was blocked with workmen repairing it so we had to turn back and travel back into the valley. We took a badly maintained road and it was worse than the first one.

The village was a fortified place 2,600 metres high. At the village we stayed in one of the three tourist hotels. There were mattresses on the carpeted floor, a hot water heater and shower, squat toilet, and a large common room where we ate dinner. The electricity went off for a short time but there was a back up generator.

We sat on the floor and ate a dinner of bread, beans, rice and egg omelette. The Uzbekistan guide played the urd and sang some traditional songs. After dinner we had a warm lemon-flavoured non-alcoholic beer, a warm shower and an early night.

The next morning we had bread, boiled egg and a spreadable cheese breakfast followed by sweet black tea and headed of to look around the village. There were two open water cisterns where veiled women were filling buckets of algae-green water and taking them on their heads back to their houses.

Some of the local children joined us and pointed out the mosques, local school, and prison. Sometimes we were crowded by children begging for pens, to have their photo taken, and money , of course. 46% of Yemen's population is under 15 years of age and women have an average of 6.5 children. 73% of the population live in rural areas. According to UN stats, 45% of the people live below the poverty line of $2US per day and only 50% are literate. So, there are children everywhere eager to follow you and try their luck.

Outside the village is a stone bridge that is 340 years old. It has helped link the villages on each side of the gorge after centuries of being apart.
The walk downhill was meant to take 2 hours but the photo-snapping Russians and their unfit guide meant we took 3 and a half hours. Unfortunately for us our camera decided to pack up during the trip so we used our memory card in Vic's camera.

The walk down went through the qat terraces. The valley and the numerous ranges around it were pretty dramatic.

We dropped our Bedouin guide off at his village and headed with the police escort from there out of the area. We passed lots of young men with knives and guns and we saw a couple of burnt out armoured cars rusting away in the valley. Some young men threw stones and sticks at our vehicle but none made contact.

Once out of the valley we were back on the sealed road and headed for Amran where the police said their goodbyes.