Yemen
- Waiting in line at Sanaa International Airport, getting ready to check in for my flight to Socotra island, I noticed the little girl in the picture playing with something in that box.
- Carry-on kids? Inside that Pall Mall box happened to be a baby.
- Naturally, the child’s mother was a tattoo broad…
- As shown by the man puffing in the bottom half of the picture, the “NO SMOKING” signs are just a suggestion at SAH.
- Guards at Socotra Airport
- Socotra veggies
- It appears that when boats get washed up on Socotra’s shore, they’re just left there to rot.
- Rest in pieces, Al Safir
- Socotra resident
- Sunset
- Some peeps campin’ on the beach – looks like a professional car ad, doesn’t it?
- Sometimes being on Socotra made me feel like I was on another planet
- Local tree by night
- My non-English speaking driver cautiously eyeing a pack of goats while sipping his morning “chai,” or tea, at breakfast.
- Socotra landscapes are legen… – wait for it, wait for it – …dary. Legendary.
- Bird native to Socotra
- Local man taking a morning rest
- Flag of Socotra painted on a shoreline boulder
- The road leading to Diksam Plateau, home of the otherworldly “Dragon’s Blood” and “Cucumber” trees.
- “MOCK…Yeah!…ING…Yeah!…BIRD…Yeah!” On the way to Diksam, we picked up some hitchhikers. When I went to take this photo, the woman on the left ducked down in panic out of the shot. Women in Yemen really didn’t like to be photographed.
- Hitchhiker boy
- Up ahead on the right are a couple of the first Dragon’s Blood trees I saw on the island
- One of the ubiquitous island goats posing for me in front of a pond
- Now we’re fully immersed in Dragon’s Blood territory
- Bunch of goats seeking shelter in the shade of a DB tree
- Sweet
- This is what a Dragon’s Blood tree looks like when dead
- My driver, Mohammed
- Think I could walk a tightrope across that valley?
- The underside of a Dragon’s Blood tree
- View of the valley from a shady spot – out of the unforgiving rays of the Indian Ocean sun
- Mohammed, the driver, chillin’ out
- SUCK IT! Dragon’s Blood tree!!!
- Mohammed doin’ a SUCK IT!!!
- The oh-so-bizarre cucumber trees
- Trifecta
- The hike through this valley led to a natural swimming pool
- A cucumber tree in front of the aforementioned natural swimming pool
- Mohammed stayin’ cool
- Green river
- View of above from where I decided to lay down after lunch
- Another one of those local birds
- Kids selling spices
- Carpenter dudes
- Kids playin’ soccer
- One of my favorite parts about Yemen were the over-packed truckbeds containing 10+ Yemenis as they sped down mountainous highways at dangerously high speeds.
- Shell of a station wagon ditched on the side of the road
- Mosque
- Front door of someone’s house featuring a Dragon’s Blood Tree and an Islamic crescent moon
- Socotra Bro #1
- Socotra Bro #2
- Mountains as seen during my pre-dinner hike
- Very few Socotra natives spoke English but despite the language barrier, these guys made me laugh – especially the goofball on the right.
- Socotra girls, pre-hijab age
- Couple dudes hangin’ outside a shop who greeted me warmly and gave me a free chocolate bar
- Dude I met towards the end of my hike who offered to drive me back to my hotel.
- Getting into a car with stranger Arabs in a country known for kidnapping wasn’t the best idea, but this dude took me exactly where I needed to be.
- Third and final day on Socotra. The road that leads to Qalansiyah, an area of the island famous for its pristine beaches
- Qalansiyah to my right
- Qalansiyah to my left
- Seafaring bro
- Fisherman in training
- Boatsmen
- The captain of my boat chatting it up on a cell phone…
- …and his co-captain.
- Heading on our way to a secluded beach, a ride that’d take about an hour each way
- Am I crazy or does this look like the arm and hand of some giant, mythical rock creature giving the thumbs up?
- A flock of seagulls
- This scenery made me rock hard
- Clearest water I’ve ever seen
- Docking the boat on a beach to ourselves…time to get gay?
- Where the swimsuit models at?
- I got crabs…
- “Hey, SUCK IT! all you people on helicopters and airplanes!!”
- A school of dolphins…unfortunately didn’t see Dan Marino – laces out, Dan!
- Back to the village from where we’d set sail
- Kids playin’ on a boat
- Beach babes
- Boat bros
- After I ate lunch, this goat wandered up and started eating one Kleenex after another from this box.
- Then, a second one came up and they started fighting over the delicious Kleenex.
- MMMMM!!! Kleenex is so good!
- So, yeah, next thing ya know, ten goats have completely surrounded me and are all feasting down on this gourmet box of Kleenex. It was totally bizarre.
- Socotra really was a beautiful island. This and the next two pictures were all taken from the same vantage point. This is a view to my right.
- View inland
- View to my left
- Somebody’s home?
- Two kids?
- Fuzzy haired kids playing on the side of the road
- One last SUCK IT! from Mohammed
- To me, this tree looked like three witches leaning back and laughing – perhaps I’d been chewing too much qaat for my own good…