IS IT TOO LATE FOR YEMEN?

I’ll never forget the first photos I saw of Sana’a, Yemen. A magical, fairy tale sort of place that reminded me of a medieval Dubai.

Situated in a mountain valley at an altitude of 6,600 feet and inhabited for more than 2500 years, the Old City of Sana’a is defined by an extraordinary density of rammed earth and burned brick towers rising several stories above the ground, most of them strikingly decorated with geometric patterns of fired bricks and white gypsum. The ochre of the buildings blends into the burnt-umber tones of the nearby mountains. Within the city, ancient minarets pierce the skyline and spacious green gardens are scattered between the densely packed houses, mosques, bath buildings and caravanserais.

There are over 14,000 tower houses in Sana’a, designed to bring residents as close to heaven as possible. Probably world’s first skyscrapers, the houses often reach six to eight stories and follow a set design.The top of the house contains the attic, then the mafraj, or the “room with a view.” The mafraj views over the city are often quite incredible.

It would be several years before we would make the trip to Yemen. We finally arrived in Sana’a off an Egyptair flight on an evening in March 2006. I had originally planned to do an extensive tour of the country, including Wadi Hadramawt in the east, and I had been in touch with a local travel agent. But two recent terrorist atrocities had convinced me that I should limit my visit to just Sana’a – get in, have a look, and get out in one piece. It was unlikely that I would be back in the area any time soon, so it was basically now or never. I did return to the region seven years later but, by that time, it was too late for Sana’a.

Our passports attracted a lot of attention at Sana’a Airport. Immigration officials kept shuffling the documents back and forth, each one examining them in minute detail. They eventually decided  that the passports were “too hot to handle” and turned them over to the head man. He kept reading and studying them, flipping through the pages and scratching his head. Our visas were perfectly legitimate, having been recently obtained at the Embassy of Yemen in Washington, DC. But I think the guy was looking for a way to keep us out of the country – for what reason, I have no idea.

He eventually relented, and we were finally allowed to enter the country. I had made previous arrangements with our hotel, the Arabia Felix, and they had agreed to send a driver. He was outside of arrivals and drove us, without fanfare, to the hotel. The hotel was located in a 5-story tower house, typical of buildings in the Old City. Two young porters scrambled up 5 flights of stairs with our considerable baggage. It was already late, and we soon turned in.

The following morning, after breakfast, we decided to head down to the main souq (market) which was located about three blocks away. This was our main reason for visiting the city, after all. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and was a little apprehensive. The closest parallel I can draw to Sana’a is Fez, Morocco – equally ancient and with a similar exotic, medieval aura. Our reception in Fez on several previous visits had always been less than optimal. Immediately after passing through the Bab Bou Jeloud, the main city gate, we had routinely been accosted by several faux guides – the scourge of Moroccan tourist cities. Like everyone else in Fez, they wanted to escort us to the tannery – a “tourist attraction” we had seen before, and one which had, frankly, left me underwhelmed. On our last visit, we were even harassed by a group of young punks about being American. How they knew we were American is beyond me, but I’ve been told for years that everybody in the world can identify an American traveler from a block away.

To make a long story short, we got none of this nonsense in Sana’a. It seemed that most of the people didn’t even notice us – not that we didn’t stand out. Those who did notice us seemed friendly enough. The souq was a colorful affair but not particularly chaotic. No peddlers, touts, or faux guides came up to us, and we were allowed to stroll around at leisure, drinking in the exotic scene.

The men were particularly interesting. Each man wore a distinctive head wrap, and every single one of them had a Jambiya (the ritual Yemeni dagger) tucked into his belt. A few years later, we would witness a similar scenario in Oman – one country over on the Persian Gulf and a richer, somewhat sanitized version of Yemen, but no less interesting.

The market was loosely divided into sections, and there were a lot of random men hanging around. I’m not sure that there is much to do in Sana’a, and the souq must have served as a meeting place for the men. Most of them were high on chat by the early afternoon.

Chat is a mildly hallucinatory leaf chewed by virtually 100% of Yemeni men. It also used extensively throughout the nearby Horn of Africa and I had previously been to the huge chat market in Harar, Ethiopia.

The women were present but, of course, much less in evidence. The young ones were all completely covered in black. The older ladies tended to wear a bright, floral design, and a few of them showed a bit more face. Many of the ladies also wore black gloves.

After a full day, we went back to our hotel and struggled up the 5 flights of stairs. The hotel, of course, had no elevator. There was a roof terrace with a spectacular view over the Old City. It appeared that a storm was gathering, and I rushed up to the roof to have a look before it started to pour.

The following day, we returned to the souq. On our last day, I had arranged a side trip through the hotel which also housed a travel agency. We traveled first to Wadi Dhahr – one of Yemen’s most famous sights.

We then drove to Thulla and Kawkaban, a pair of mountain villages not far from Sana’a. This gave us a good look at rural life in the country, and was every bit as interesting as the capital.

We were transported to the airport the following morning. One of the hotel workers had asked the manager if he could accompany us. He spent the whole trip leering at my wife which I thought was a bit unusual since Joan, although still attractive, was no longer a young woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the first time he had been in a car with a western female – perhaps with any female who wasn’t a relative. But, that’s the way things are in this part of the world and western travelers just have to accept it.

We flew back to Cairo, and from there on to Damascus. But that’s another story.

We all know what has been happening in Yemen over the past five years and I’m starting to think that it might already be too late for future travelers to visit this fascinating and (in my experience) welcoming country – just another example of selfish, greedy men doing their best to ruin the world – another example of ignorance, religion and ethnicity getting in the way of common sense and reason. I’m glad that I had the courage to visit Old Sana’a when I had the opportunity. It would, undoubtedly, be my last chance.

The destruction of an ancient city has much in common with the extinction of a species. There is no going back. As the great American Naturalist, William Beebe once said: “When the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another Heaven and another Earth must pass before such a one can be again.”

We’ll never see another Sana’a. Let’s hope that some of it will be preserved.

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