Wadi Hadhramout - Al-Hajarayn, Shibam Hadhramout

Our second day in Wadi Hadramont included trips to Al-Hajarayn and Shibam Hadhramout. The swimming pool proved even more popular at night than during the day, so a 2 hour game of keep-away left everyone a little sleepy at breakfast. We had a two hour drive by bus to Al-Hajjarain, our first stop of the day. Most of the cities in Hadhramout are built along the bottom of the valley, but Al-Hajarayn is built on the steep hills that lead up to the plateaus. Therefore, our valiant attempts to get the buses up the switchback road failed miserably. While the town itself is dusty and dirty, it overlooks the junction of two wadis and a large date palm farm. The town is known best for its honey, allegedly the "best honey in the world." Well I had several different varieties of "the best honey in the world" poured straight into my hand so I could lick it out.
Maybe its a result of my upbringing, but my favorite was the least expensive kind. We made good friends with our tourist police protection men with guns who had no problems butting the line to get sample honey for those who stayed outside. On the way back to the bus I had the wonderful opportunity to (close your eyes Lolly and Nana) take a photo with an AK-47! I would put it up but Big Katie's uncle added a beard and mustache to it and it might prompt the US government to refuse to let me back in.
After all of this, it was time for lunch. We drove back towards Shibam and saw a bunch of wild camels on the side of the road! And guess what was for lunch? CAMEL! I was very excited and loudly proclaimed my intentions to eat an entire camel by myself. Until I tried it. I'm sure that if you are stuck in the desert drinking water from a cactus and your only source of protein is a camel, that it would taste pretty good. But coming from the land of steak and hamburgers, I will be the first to say that unless I am stuck in the desert drinking from a cactus, there is no way I am eating camel again. Oily and greasy, its unpleasant slide down my throat led me to pass the plate along and ask where the veggies were. Sorry if anyone is eating.
We rode back to the hotel for our break between cities, jumped in the pool and played some sharks and minnows (interesting how we had to explain the rules...I thought that game was universal).

After the break we drove to Shibam Hadhramout, "The Manhattan of the Desert." They weren't lying. Shibam was founded BC and was built up in the 16th century to be, according to our tourist sheet "one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction." I don't know if that was their exact wording in the 15oo's, but the buildings, like the rest of Hadhramout made completely from mud bricks and clay, rise to seven or eight stories. Skyscrapers! We wandered around the city admiring the architecture, the majesty of human engineering, and the goats that seemingly outnumbered the people. I made another tourist police friend, a man from Sana'a, who helped me by a traditional Hadhramout man-skirt for 1/3 the price it would have cost a regular tourist.
As the sun sunk lower in the sky, we piled back on the buses and headed across the road to a nearby mountain and climbed up in order to have a bird's eye view of Shibam Hadhramout for sunset. A small group of us decided the first viewing spot wasn't adequate enough, and climbed about halfway up the mountain for a better view. By the time we got there, the sun had disappeared behind a cloudbank above the plateau's, making the sunset rather disappointing, but the view of the valley from where we were was incredible, miles down the wadi in both directions.
After the sunset, we made our way back down to the buses and had a run-in with the cousins of lunch.
The bus trip back to the hotel was full of Arabic riddles and jokes, and I am proud to say I now know how to tell the 'talking muffin' joke in arabic. I will be able to die happy!