Hiking into Paradise

As with all backcountry trips, we arose with the sun at 530 am to a wonderful breakfast of cheese, bread, and tea. Today is our 'strenuous' hiking day and the plan is for us to 'go for a walk' (as the British say) for about 5 hours to a natural spring located in the bottom of a deep wadi (valley) called Hamman al-Ayun. After another very bumpy ride, we stopped at a farm in the middle of the perfect horror movie setting, dismounted from my cab-top throne, and headed off into the wilderness.

We crossed over the first set of small hills and opening up before us was a landscape that rivaled the Grand Canyon, if not in color then in shear colossal size. The group quickly separated into smaller hiking groups. I was hiking close to the front with the tribesman. You know the saying, “If you’re not the lead dog the scene never changes”? My view was of a goat on the back of the tribesman in front of me. While I was aware that this was actually the only thing on the menu for lunch, I was unable to keep myself from forming quite the relationship with it. Poor Jemima.

About an hour and a half after starting to hike, we completed our descent into the wadi and you will never guess what was there! In the middle of desert/mountainous Yemen! A river!
Hammam al-Ayun is a natural spring that erupts from the mountainside to form a river flowing down the valley through the massive boulders and over stones of every color imaginable. Blue, purple, orange, yellow, pink, green, shiny black. The river was interspaced with shallow ripples and waist deep pools big enough to float in. As the rest of the group arrived, all the boys got into their swimtrunks, the tribesmen went into the river in their shorts, and hooray for the girls once again swimming in shorts/pants and tee-shirts. But the water was incredibly refreshing after the hike down, and the giant boulders were perfect for laying in the sun to dry off.
Jemima kicked the bucket and soon was in a pot boiling for lunch. There was plenty of time for exploring, swimming, napping, and talking. Around noon (we arrived in the wadi around 9), the tribesman called us in for tea and goat! Yum.

What better way to celebrate your lunch of recently bleating goat than by shooting guns. Ak-47’s to be exact. Until recently, men carried their AKs everywhere with them. In the countryside, in the middle of Sana’a, it didn’t matter. A couple of years ago, carrying an assault rifle in the city was made illegal, but in the mountainous countryside, everyone and their mother has a gun. (‘Like who?’ ‘Farmers.’ ‘Yeah? Who else?’ ‘Farmer’s mums.’) Well, maybe everyone and their son. Anyway, while I had held a gun in Al-Hajjarain, this time I was able to shoot one into the opposite side of the wadi. Ah, the power.

After the tribesman had had their qat time, we started hiking out of the canyon back to the cars. The group separated again and strung itself out across the hills. The first group, about five of us and most of the tribesman, trucked it up the hills pretty quickly. A couple of us contented ourselves with playing the famous person name game in order to keep our minds off the hike. The tribesmen chose to smoke cigarettes while hiking almost straight up the mountains. These men are nothing but muscle – machines!

We reached the farm in about 2 hours and had some time to spend with the family at the farm house. Tea or qat? Tea please.

Everyone else made it up to the farm as the sun was setting over the mountains, and we piled back into the trucks for our now dark and bumpy ride home. A brief stop at a small store gave the girls an opportunity to have more tea with more women and the most adorable fat month old named Ahmed.

The evening meal was beans, bread, cheese, and tea, followed by the evening entertainment of mind-bending riddles. Following the brave souls of the night before, I slept on the roof under the brightest stars in Yemen. The Milky Way. Constant shooting stars. You can’t make me leave!!!