Another Trip

I went on another trip this past weekend. 2 nights and 3 days. It was fun. I was able to see some amazingly beautiful parts of this country. So green and striking. You'd just never imagine parts of the Arabian Peninsula being so green and fertile. We left Thursday morning, bright and early, and went first to Rada, about 150 km south of Sana'a. We had lunch in there and visited a beautiful mosque. The mosque was said to have been built around 500 years ago. I of course left my camera in the van at this point and have no pictures.

Then we checked into our hotel and I took a short nap before going to the natural hammam. There is a volcano in this city so the hammam was completely heated by the volcano. It was the hottest water I have ever been in in my life. It burned to just have your feet in it but if you completely submerged yourself it really wasn't too bad. After the hammam, we hiked up the volcano. At this point I had my camera so here are some pictures from that.

This is what the inside of the volcano looked like. Yay.
Here is a view of the volcano we climbed.

These two are views from the top of the volcano.



The next day we drove to Ibb. We walked around the cities and had lunch there. Then we went to Ta'iz, which was my favorite part of the trip. Here are some pictures of the beautiful landscape between Ibb and Ta'iz.


You can see people working in the field in this picture.

In Ta'iz we visited al Qahirah, which I believe is an old citadel and governor's palace which sits on top of a mountain 450 meters above the city center. The sun was setting when we were up there, which made it twice as beautiful and very difficult for me to stop taking pictures.


If you look closely you can see a heard of camels making their way down this steep steep mountain.




Then the next day, Saturday, we got up early and had breakfast and then toured around the old city and the palace of the Imam. While on our walking tour I found 200 rial on the ground. Woo me! That's about the eqivilent of $1 in the States but it bought me an ice cream and a water bottle. Your money goes a bit further here in Yemen then in the States. After we left Ta'iz we drove up the mountains, past all these little 'villages' until we got to the top of the mountain. We were at an elevation of about 3300 meters. Very high and extremely beautiful. So of course I took many pictures.

It's just so beautiful

Most all the agriculture/farming in Yemen is done on these terraces cut into the sides of the mountains. These terraces have been carved out over thousands of years. It's just so amazing/beautiful.



The mom really wanted us to take pictures with her kids, but she refused to be photographed herself.



So that was my three day weekend. It was nice to be able to get out of Sana'a and see some more of Yemen. I almost forgot one of the best parts of this trip! In Yemen there are all these check points along the roads and foreigners traveling have to have permissions to pass. So at one of our first check points the guards there decided that we shouldn't be traveling without security, so they insisted on escorting us (they must of been really bored). The best part is that from where we were stopped waiting for them to escort us we could see all the guys in the car combing their hair and 'primping' for us. We all got a good laugh out of that. They escorted us all day until about dinner time and then went home. The next morning though, they were back and stayed with us until about 4pm. That was the end of them. How bored must you be to want to just drive around, following these foreigners around. One or two of them even climbed the volcano with us. So unnecessary.