tihama

"And the Tihama... is like Africa", Kamal said pointing at a map of Yemen in his office, while we were putting together the road trip.



The contrast is stunning indeed, coming down from Yemen's inhabited mountains to the dusty plains of the Tihama. Suddenly the windshield frames a flat horizon, half sand half haze, darker skins in colorful dresses, huts made of palm leaves and palm trunks, motorcycles replacing donkeys, and the first camel of our trip.







Fish for lunch in Al Hudayda, Yemen's biggest port city on the Red Sea. Plus a visit to the fishing port and fish market, apart from crows and flies fairly deserted in the midday heat.



Soon we head south, for a bumpy drive along the Red Sea coast, literally - one wheel in, one wheel out. Pumped up with qat and his favorite tape of Arabic music, our driver Omar tries to keep up with playboy Kamal. Fortunately the local pelicans don't seem to mind that much.



Kamal has selected a "special place" for our New Year's party, on a tidal plain hours of bouncing south of Hudayda. Under a bunch of palm trees we pitch the tents with the last sunset of the year. For the first time in centuries, the new years of both Arabic (lunar) and western (solar) calendars coincide.

Even though Kamal tried really hard, we're not alone. On an evening stroll away from Yemeni Dreams base camp, we come across a salt mine and a couple of small and primitive settlements, made entirely out of palms, nested in the dunes. Considering how long it takes for the kids to approach us foreigners, we start doubting if they have seen any before. And if they celebrate any New Year at all, lunar or solar.



Back at the camp, other Yemeni Dreams drivers have - surprizingly - found their way to this middle of nowhere, just in time for the party. We end the year - and just our second day in Yemen - with a low-tech but very enjoyable party on the Red Sea coast. Thanks to Kamal's extensive array of games and dances, and to the international company.

wadi dahr

Lots of Yemeni families visit Dar al Hajar, a classic just out of Sana'a, even though the house they live in is probably older than this rock palace imam Yahyah had built for himself in the 1930s. Spectacular nonetheless.







Picturesque Thulla, still within daytrip range of Sana'a, is famous for its polyglot kids. They lure you to their textiles in spotless Italian, French, English - indeed more than just the few usual oneliners. We end up in a family's cool living room and try on some classics from the Yemeni wardrobe, while mom is busy preparing saltah for lunch. Click on the picture below to remove the veil...



Unfortunately it wasn't always that easy...
Only after a couple of weeks into our trip, it dawned on us that we hadn't seen any female face. Not one, except for the girls everywhere and a very old lady resting on a terrace wall of Jbel Boura. Outside the women's quarters of their homes, Yemeni women consistently veil up, leaving only the eyes uncovered. In the city just as much as on the countryside, on Socotra as well as in Sana'a.

Even more bewildering is the idea that a Yemeni man gets to see only one more female face than we did. No kidding - still today, the vast majority of Yemeni men never see the face of their bride before the day of the wedding, and don't know the face of their best friend's wife.

Still, as all Yemenis - men and women - insisted that Candida has to be Yemeni (alright, with a Brasilian dad, but eventually Yemeni), or at least Arabiya, we have an idea of what those faces must look like...





As we're driving up to eagle's nest Kawkaban, Omar gets a phonecall from a friend reporting a landslide in a village closeby, making 150 casualties. Soon but involuntary we're part of the caravan of cars lining up to watch half of Al-Dhafir burried under giant boulders, a scar of fresh rock towering above. "God sliced it with a jambiya in the middle of the night!" (overheard from Kamal)

The flocking crowd reminds Omar of another unusual - less dramatic - event, when a mountainside was topped with snow a couple of winters ago. Even the president went to see the Yemeni snow with his own eyes.

The number of casualties will eventually settle around 50 (the Arabic sense of exaggeration). Al-Dhafir makes it into newsflash from Yemen. As if the the two hostage crises (the German diplomat's family and the Italian tourists), both unfolding during our trip, weren't enough to cause the occasional worry in Belgium and New York...




We're in good hands though. After just one day, we feel very comfortable with Omar and with the pace he drives us through increasingly stunning mountainscapes... Mist in our first overnight stop Mahwit, no snow.

yemeni dreams

"Our Customers Don't Have To Do A Single Thing, Except, Of Course, To Have A Good Time..."



Stumbling across Yemeni Dreams happened largely by accident. In the face of limited printed material, a Lonely Planet from 1994 (not even plans for a Rough Guide), we focussed mainly on internet sources for information and suggestions on developing our own program.

Though neither of us are usually 'tour' style travellers, we quickly gathered that independent travel in Yemen could prove challenging and that there was indeed some value in contacting a few local tour companies to help illuminate the volatile topic of travel restrictions and necessary permits. Tina and Kamal from Yemeni Dreams answered first to our email with an encouraging balance of optimism, realism, and clarity - "The country is safe to travel”…

After an intense email roundtable (creatively trying to work around the travel restrictions, at one point Kamal proposed to send a Yemeni guide on a bike with us), we signed off on a deal with Yemeni Dreams. The package included the necessary permits and visas, a flight to Socotra, plus a tour program for the first week since it was clear from the start that certain vertical parts of quintessential Yemen are simply not accessible by bike.



First real contact with Yemeni Dreams comes months later in the form of Waleed. Jovial, confident, and just a little tougher than a oversized puppy, Waleed meets us at the airport, and leads us with a swagger and few words out to his car. Fresh off the boat and excitedly groggy from over 24 hours of traveling and stopovers (Brussels London Abu Dhabi Sana'a) we pile our bikes, our luggage and ourselves into his fancy car, Jan in front, Dida in back. Yemen kicks in quickly with one of our first gestures as Jan reaches to buckle his seatbelt, mistaking the butt of Waleed's Kalashnikov for the other end of the belt buckle. Waleed casually nudges the semiautomatic a few inches closer to him and flashes Jan a toothy green smile. With that we speed off to the office at Khartoum Street.

The Yemeni Dreams office is a place where time stops. Never a rush under any circumstances. We meet Kamal's businesslike side that night briefly, but are redirected immediately to the qat room to wait for him to finish with the other group. The qat room is surely an initiation for new arrivals, though completely unaggressive it has the vague sense of challenge.

Anyone planning a trip to Yemen will necessarily read some qat mythology – and here we are confronted by a roomful of it. A small back room with traditional low cushions around the perimeter, and in the center an explosion of green. Three or four young men lounge around the shredded bush - philosophizing, picking the tenderest shoots, pondering, plucking and brushing, chewing, stuffing it all into one cheek until full to capacity (“storing”). A ritual we would witness each of the thirty days ahead, in all parts of the country.

Yemen shuts down daily between the hours of noon and six. It begins with the quest and intense haggling for the finest leaves at the qat market. Virtually everybody joins the race – skipping lunch (and prayer). You have to see in order to believe.






After the market and the streets have emptied out, cheeks start expanding, very gradually, eyes get watery, indoors conversations increasingly associative. Long and dreamy hours later, when the sun is casting long shadows, a wave of typical post meridiem melancholy rolls over the minds of Yemen, reminding Yemenis of the unfulfilled aspirations and unfinished projects. Time to purge the green substance...



Above, the mafraj - the recessed top floor of the Yemeni tower house - is the location par excellence for breezy qat conversations.

Yemenis habitually insist however that qat is a non-addictive substance – just a little stimulating, like coffee... Back in the qat room we chat in mellow tones with whomever drifts through, politely postponing our first grazing experience for at least a few more days.



Spending our first week touring with Yemeni Dreams held the advantage of meeting a bunch of bright locals right from the start. Omar and Kamal made our landing in Yemen very soft, and answered a lot of our questions just by hanging out with us.




Kamal is a playboy, a prankster, a lover of superlatives, the guy who makes things happen. It was in Kamal's company that we had without exception the most delicious and particularly Yemeni meals of our trip. A truly entrepreneurial spirit, we met him at 26 years old, and by then he had already founded Yemeni Dreams, his own thriving tour company a few years back. Yet despite his distinguished and always elegant silhouette – spotless cropped-collar dishdasha, traditional embroidered scarf, and superior rhino-handle jambiya – he's still just a big kid at heart. Under his supervision we knew that even if something went wrong we would in the end only remember the fun and the adventure. From getting stranded in the desert, to driving up vertiginous mountain sides over enormous rocks in the dark, to silly gags like stealing fruits off the plates of neighbors out of the gaze of the unsuspecting waiters, Kamal made sure that these two independent-minded travelers had a great time even with their bikes still folded in the suitcases.





Our personal driver Omar stole our hearts quickly. Sincere, caring, and well-spoken, constantly jotting down english vocabulary for future use, his face at turns extremely serious or animated with a hearty laugh. His car said it all. While Kamal's brand new shiny white 4x4 rental typically sped off in the distance (and was ready to retire after just one week), Omar's rickety but faithful old car with its faded seat covers and hole in the bottom letting in Haraz dust, Tihama sand and Red Sea water... was made to last. He knows his car well. And even despite extreme multitasking of full-body driving, chewing, smoking, cellphone chatting, and flipping cassette tapes, Omar always had an ear to the back seat and a thoughtful response to our steady flow of questions. Omar was great. Definitely the guy you want to drive and hang with when you're in Yemen. “Yes. Very.”



You can contact Yemeni Dreams through their website.