Although last night in Addis Ababa should have been a long sleep, with a sleep-in until 7:00 am, it didn’t quite work out that way. There were so many e-mails to answer that I didn’t get into bed until 1:15 am. And then I was woken at a little after 6:00 am by the brightening Ethiopian sky outside the room; we have had so many mornings when it has been necessary to set the alarm for a time well before dawn that I didn’t even think to close the curtains before going to bed.
When I got out of bed and checked e-mails, there were another 35 that appeared that had not been accessible the night before because the LPCUWC e-mail server had been out of action again. So I checked off all the e-mails, had a shower, and then Andrew got out of bed at about 7:45 am with a surprising spring in his step that could only be explained by the promise of a buffet breakfast waiting for him downstairs.
It was indeed a fantastic breakfast, with perhaps more choice than all the breakfasts on the whole trip to that point combined. Thank you Ethiopian Airlines! The Airline bus arrived right on time at 9:00 am, as promised, to take us to the airport. We already had our boarding cards from the interline desk the previous evening, so all we had to do was check in our luggage, pass through immigration and board the plane.
Our flight to Sana’a was in two sectors. First was a one hour flight from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, followed by 45 minutes on the ground, followed by a short 45 minute hop across the Red Sea to Sana’a, capital city of Yemen.
The flight was in an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 and it couldn’t be faulted; as you have probably gathered by now, I have been extremely impressed with Ethiopian Airlines (with whom I had never flown prior to this trip) in every way in these travels. Although we had to remain on the plane, the brief stopover in Djibouti was a real bonus with excellent views of this very brown city as we came in to land (see the second top photo). It was a good introduction to a place that we will be visiting in just over a week from now.
I know that Yemen is not in Africa (it is at the extreme corner of South-west Asia). It was obvious that Sana’a was a ‘different’ sort of place when we were driving in from the airport and we passed a car with the boot lid fully up to reveal a smiling passenger, sitting sideways in the boot, waving to us. I had wanted to visit Yemen for some time because I had read about its great geography, and it was so close to Ethiopia that it seemed a waste not to include it in this itinerary. At one stage of my planning I had hoped to explore Yemen for about a week, but some car hijackings in the east and north of the country at the time I was doing my planning persuaded me to cut short the time and stay close to the capital city, Sana’a.
Sana’a is said to be the world’s oldest city. It was apparently started by Shem, one of Noah’s sons. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly a very old city, and nowhere is this better displayed that in the old centre of Sana’a. I always try to choose my accommodation by location as the paramount consideration, and the hotel we stayed at was brilliant in this regard – it was the Burj al Salam Hotel (sometimes transliterated as Barj Alsalam), located right near the middle of Sana’a’s old city. The buildings in Sana’a are now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and comprise stone or mud brick high rise buildings, usually decorated in an extravagant ‘lace-like’ pattern. The setting of Sana’a makes it even more spectacular, as it is backed by the high hills of surrounding mountains; Sana’a itself is at an elevation of ‘only’ 2250 metres.
After checking in to the hotel, and encountering the first instance of one chronic problem – the key didn’t easily unlock the door – we spent the rest of our daylight hours exploring the old city of Sana’a. What an assault on the senses!
The old city is visually stunning, and the hectic and busy life evident everywhere meant that there was a huge amount to take in at every turn. We wandered along the narrow streets of the old city, noticing that almost every man had a mouth full of green leaves. These were ‘qat’ or ‘gat’, the equivalent of the mildly hallucinogenic ‘chat’ that we encountered in southern Ethiopia. In Sana’a, chewing ‘gat’ seems to be a near-universal pastime for the men in the afternoon and evening (see upper right image); it certainly seemed to make people quite relaxed and happy. That was reassuring given that most men walk around carrying a huge dagger or knife on display.
Being an almost 100% Muslim country, the women were covered from head to toe in black, sometimes with the eyes showing, sometimes not. To reinforce the image of smiling, welcoming people, which had begun with smiles and handshakes from the heavily armed police who were patrolling the road into Sana’a from the airport, I lost count of the number of people who came up to us to say ‘welcome to Yemen’ or just ‘welcome’ – I have never received so many welcomes in one afternoon. As I recall now as I write this, though, every greeting was from a male, either a man or a boy. But then again, I would estimate that 95% of the people out on the streets were males.
In the markets, there were colours and aromas everywhere, whether in textiles, grains, metalwork, shoes or whatever. One surprise was coming across several small shops where we looked inside to find a blindfolded camel walking in a seemingly never-ending sequence of circles to mill sesame seeds to produce oil. It was like looking back into pre-industrial society. At sunset, we returned to our hotel to enjoy a drink on the roof, watching the skies darken and the lights of Sana’a come on.
We had a great dinner at a (much cheaper) hotel, the Arabia Felix Hotel, which was about 5 minutes walk from our hotel. It was the perfect dinner for anyone who likes spicy food (which I do), being Chicken Yemen Style (which means cooked in a black bowl and served sizzling with a spicy curry sauce), accompanied by Yemen-style flat bread, a couple of glasses of mango juice, and followed with a dessert of yogurt with honey. The photo above right shows us at dinner.
Upon returning to our hotel, we had another ‘Ethiopian’ experience - the electricity cut out. I was on the ground floor when the blackout happened, although Andrew was already up in our room on the 3rd floor. I made an extremely slow but ultimately successful ascent up the 100% pitch black stairs, grateful that there were no nasty surprises in the stairwell. Unlike our experiences in Ethiopia, the electricity returned within half an hour.
