Contrary to expectations, internet here is fine so at least the beginning and end of my Yemen stay will see me well connected.

The people here are amazingly friendly, kids follow me around, drivers stop in the street to shake my hand and welcome me to Yemen. Oh God, there’s a minced meat kebab on my plate that I want to marry.

So here is awesome, getting here was a bit of a chore. It started well with me tagging along with a bunch of backpackers on their boat ride to Salima followed by a cushy minibus ride straight to the gates of the Korea Garden.

There I caught up with Grant, a friend of a friend who’s doing amazing things with Wiimax in Malawi. Have I mentioned that there’s fresh fish in the mixed grill as well?

A good night’s sleep later I was off to the airport to start the long haul in short hops back up Africa to Cairo. Happily Ahmed had sorted me a ride from the airport and I snored my way back to the lodge. I collapsed in my room about 3am. Had I known how good this baba ghanoush would be I would have been dreaming about it.

Later that morning I got up and set out to buy some more modest clothing for my trip to Yemen based on the guide book’s exhortations. Cairo’s Carrefour to the rescue and I picked up a couple of pairs of trousers and a long sleeved shirt that’s catching all the tabouleh I’m not managing to unhale.

Then last night it was back to the airport. Just three flights last night, Cairo to Doha, Doha to Dubai and Dubai to Sana’a, arriving at 9am this morning. After a lot of ‘Salaam Aleikum’ and ‘wa-aleikum Salaam’ I got out of the airport and into the clutches of Abdul, my Sana’a tour guide. Dinner’s gone now so the running food commentary is over, although they do make a mean glass of strong sweet tea with mint.

Abdul took me on a bit of a driving tour around Sana’a including a visit to the military museum which seemed to mostly consist of cars with bullet holes showing attempts to assassinate the current president, who unlike his three predecessors has managed to survive into ripe old age.

After that it was back to the hotel and a walking tour of the old city which is where all the photos you see here were taken. That finished a couple of hours ago and after a quick rest I was down here feasting away as described above.

All in all a very good first day in a new country and I have a very good feeling about getting out to the island tomorrow. I’ll be leaving the computer behind so there will definitely be no updates from the island, but I have secured a Yemeni sim card and will endeavour to stay in contact wherever possible, at least with Mum

Once again, thanks for listening to my ravings, and I’ll be back again, hopefully from here uploading my Socotra pics while feasting once again. Later…

Thanks to all the old friends and also to all the new friends I made at the festival and at the Cape. You made my disorganised return to Malawi an absolute delight.

Cape Maclear sunset with Thumbi and Mumbo islands

Never fear though, I’ll be taking lots of photos and will scribble a few notes while I’m there so in a week or so there should be something more up here.

I’m glad I got all that camping in while in Malawi as it will stand me in good stead for all the camping on remote beaches I’ll be doing next week. It’s going to be hard returning home after all this adventure but it will be good to see everyone again.

See you from the other side…

The next morning, after photographing my handiwork and having a cold shower, I headed over to the main festival area, back towards Nkopola. The beach was still empty. This is the area in front of the main stage with the sound desk on the right.

I walked up to the main lodge to sample the luxury and pay too much for an ice-cold beer.

By the time I got back, a local Marimba band had started playing.

A few hours later in the afternoon the festival was officialy opened.The highlight was when the Minister for Tourism parachuted onto the beach to declare the festival open.

Formalities out of the way, the festival began. Friday night featured local bands mostly and to my mind was the best night of the festival. I’m not a music critic so I won’t rite too much about the music, suffice it to say that African bands put all they have into playing their music and the effect on the crowd is contagious. I made it back to my tent at about 3am Saturday morning.

The sun forced me to vacate my tent around 7:30 and I was pleased to discover that Nkopola was putting on breakfast. I made a home made sausage and egg muffin and drank 2 cups of strong coffee before heading out to face the day again. I spent a fair bt of Saturday morning reading and dozing on sunloungers around the lodge before rousing myself again about 5 when the music started up again.

Saturday night was the first performance by the headline UK act the Noisettes. They played an energetic set that really got the crowd moving

They were joined on stage by a Zimbabwean dancer at one point

and the lead singer wasn’t shy about climbing the stage

or venturing out onto the hands of the crowd. I have no idea of the quality of this video I’m afraid, it was enough of a mission trying to upload it, let alone try and watch it. Shot with my point ‘n’ click camera.

Noisettes at Lake of Stars 2010

Once again I didn’t get back to my tent until about 3am. My lone tent had now been joined by 10 or 20 more and one of them had obviously angered an ants’ nest. I spent the night being crawled upon by the little buggers but was tired enough to sleep anyway.

The next day followed pretty much the same pattern and the festival closed with some great African music followed by UK djs. I had applied about half a can of the local insect repellent DOOM to my tent so this night was mostly ant-free.

The DJs were still going when I got up to pack at 6:30 the next morning. After a coffee and a few goodbyes I headed out ith pack on back to try and find a ride to Monkey Bay to get the pickup to Cape Macler. I was in luck as I came across a bunch of travellers with a car going all the way to Cape Maclear.

Despite all the other roads in the country being in much better condition than when I lived here previopusly, the Cape Maclear road is the same as it ever was, all potholes and corrugations. I’m glad I managed to avoid the pickup. Within two hours of leaving the festival I was sat at the new bar at Fat Monkeys drinking a green…

So the next night I flew to Sharm el Sheikh on the Sinai Coast and was picked up by Hassan, the insanely grinning qat-chewing taxi driver for the 80km drive up the coast to Dahab. Apart from giving a cat a bit of a scare the drive was uneventful and swift and within an hour I was happily sleeping in my room in Dahab. And apart from occasionally shifting from my bed to the piles of cushions by the Red Sea, that’s where I stayed for the next day.

Thoroughly rested, I set out at 4 the next morning to catch the bus to Taba to catch the ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. Border formalities out of the way I got on the bus to Petra. On the way we passed many Bedouin settlements. While they mostly have a couple of pickups hanging around, each camp had a healthy herd of camels grazing nearby.

We stopped at a fancy hotel for lunch, after which I wandered outside to check the scenery and the hotel’s “Bedouin Camp” outside.

Back on the bus to wind down the hill into Wadi Musa the town above Petra. It was here that the Bedouin were forcibly removed to in 1985 when the Jordanian government decided they were getting in the way of the tourist dollar. I can’t help thinking the site may have been more interesting had the Bedouins been allowed to remain so you could see the caves actually being lived in. All in the past of course.

The path down to Petra follows the Siq or gorge down into the vsalley. I and several thousand other tourists were snapping our way down the path. Almost immediately you come across room size tomb buildings. Then you come to the start of the Siq proper and the

As soon as you are enclosed within the Siq walls the temperature drops dramatically as if you have entered an air-conditioned room and you can straight away see what made this place so attractive to the Nabateans who had made their way up here through Saudi Arabia. The further in you go, the higher the density of caves, statues and niches carved into the colourful sandstone walls.

Along both sides of the Siq at about waist height run water channels that were carved both to protect the city from floods and to provide the city with water. In some places higher up the wall you can see the crumbling remains of a second secret channel which supplied water when the city was beseiged and the attackers cut of the lower channels.

The thing that struck me about the place at this point is how good a climber the average Nabatean must have been. At that point in my head they became the Nabatean Monkey Men and my imagination soon had them scrambling up the cliff faces into their caves or hanging from one arm while they carved new sculpures into the coloured rock.

Sadly the iconoclasts have been as busy here as they have throughout the Middle East and sculptures featuring men or animals had been destrtoyed or defaced, but in what remains you can see the detail of the carving. Talented monkey men.

And then around the corner I came across the treasury, Monkey man magic!

You can see the steps they carved to get to the top and then start carving down. The influences are Greek, Roman, Egyptian and of course Nabatean and reflect the many cultures they traded with. Trade-savvy monkey men.

I came back to it when the sun was kinder and the crowds were smaller so there may be another photo or two of the Treasury later on. The Treasury may be the most famous and best restored monument but the work of the monkey men was only beginning to reveal itself. Around the corner again you come in to the city proper, passing noble monkey men’s houses.

The main city area is littered with the common monkey men’s caves. There are 5,000 of these and they held a population which exceeded 30,000. Not bad for 2,400 years ago. Industrious monkey men.

Of course when you have that many monkley men, you need somewhere to get them all together for entertainment and animal sacrifice and such forth. So of course you carve that out of the mountainside as well. The ampitheatre held 5,000 people. The columns and stage at the base were added by the Romans when they took over the city. I can only imagine the caves at the top were corporate boxes.

When you get up close to the caves you see how colourful the patterns in the stone are.

Next up I came across a series of massive structures on the opposite wall. These structures were embellished with columns and arches by the Romans. Time to climb up for a closer look. The next series of photos is all from this section.

Moving on from here you come to the “Roman” section of *etra, still mostly made by the Nabateans but with more Roman additions.

I declined to climb the 1000 steps to get to the top of this section. Hey, I’m no monkey man and I’d been up since 3:30am, so I began the long walk back past everything. It was later in the day and the low sun cast completely different colours on everything. The following photos are from my leisurely stroll back up the canyon

Of course, just as I was on my way out the light got really good. But you can use Google images to get nice sunset pictures of the rest.

And there you have it. A lot of photos I know but I trimmed it down from the 300 I took that day. I’m going to leave it here in the interests of getting this published today. The next post will cover the day I spent at Wadi Rum and Aqaba and got my hair cut. In the meantime you can try and guess how short it is now. Congratulations if you got this far.

Until next time…