Sept 28

Sept 28 Thursday. The next day I was awoken at noon by Markus who wanted to see if I was going to come along on this village trip he was going on today. I agreed since it would be nice to get out of Sana'a for a little bit and see something new. Matt opted to stay home because he wanted to do homework. So I joined Markus to meet up with his friend Adel (who use to be a teacher at SIAL) in Tahrir Square, as well as the German girl, Sandra. We took one of the buses to the very end of Hadda street in the south. And then started our trek on foot up through this town, and then into the mountains... I had no idea there would hiking involved and had just worn my normal sandals, which definitely wasn't the best choice of shoes for navigating up all these dirt and rock paths, and climbing over things, and avoiding prickly bushes and the like. There were a ton of cactuses around too... We weren't really sure how to get where we wanted to go, so we kept following this trail up the hill. Along the first path there were these two twin puppies just sitting there, and they turned out to be really friendly and started following me up the path. I stopped to pet them for a minute and then continued on the way. The kept following for awhile but their little legs couldn't keep up with us and they fell behind. Later we encountered a teenage boy up on the mountain trail along with his donkey, so we asked for directions to a village, and he showed us the way. Markus was joking around with Adel about the donkey and the guy offered to let him ride it... He tried for a bit, having to duck under cactuses and so forth, but quickly fell off. Then the guy hopped on his donkey and just took off up the steep rocky path with no problems. It was pretty funny, and the donkey is surprisingly fast. He had to stop and wait for us to catch up, and then encountered a friend from the village, and offered the donkey to Markus for a second try. This time he was able to successful ride the donkey up to the gate of the village. I would've tried to ride it, but I knew that I would have fallen right on my head or something, especially on that path we were on! We walked through the village and found a really nice view (by now we were nearing the top of this mountain) down onto Sana'a and the surrounding area. You could see how truly large the city of Sana'a is, at the points where I thought it stopped it actually kept sprawling. Also remember that the city of Sana'a itself is already at an elevation of 7,000 feet! We sat for awhile at the top, and then decided to continue on our quest of finding the city of Bayt Bous which was supposed to be even nicer.... We continued walking along a mountain road, however this time it was at least flat, and not just up hill. After walking for another 30 to 45 minutes we came across another village. It was really nice, there was a little waterfall there and river going through it, possibly from a spring. Lots of little stone houses, and stone streets, it reminded me of an old Italian village, if not for all the garbage and litter everywhere. It seems to be Yemeni Culture to throw your garbage where ever, whenever. In Sana'a it is dirty too, but you always see street cleaner people going around sweeping up everyone's trash. But this is doesn't appear to happen out in the smaller villages. Again we got directions from a group of people toward Bayt Bous and continued on our way. We encountered a mother dog and about 5 puppies on the way. Two of them come up to us, and Markus threw them one of his cactus fruits to see if they would eat it, and surprisingly one of them did. We continued down the street, and then ran across a bus dropping off some people, and asked if we could get a ride to the old village of Bayt Bous. We drove through new Bayt Bous, which is now a part of Sana'a, and started driving very slowly back up the mountain... I didn't think the van would make it. We kept having to stop and ask people on the street which street lead to Old Bayt Bous. We eventually found our way there and he took us to the end of the road literally. The trip cost us 200 riyals each, or about $1 as it was pretty long, and they usually run along pre-set routes. There was a little lake or body of water right below us, and little kids were jumping in and swimming, and yelling up to us on the cliff "Sadeeq! Soora!" (Friend! Picture!) wanting us to snap photos of them swimming, however I didn't bring my camera with me because I just thought we would be going to some little town on the outskirts of Sana'a, nothing special. But I did regret not bringing it! The city of Bayt Bous is perched up on an opposing cliff, and is now an old nearly abandoned city, however there were a few Yemenis around, herding goats and sheep. Walking around with kalashnikov rifles, and gathering things from the nearby area. We walked into the old city, which is almost like the Roman Forum, full of ruins, however many of the buidlings are still standing. We could venture into old houses, which were like mini-skyscrapers just like Sana'a, with many floors, built out of mud bricks, rocks, and logs. From the tops of the houses there were amazing views of Sana'a and far drop from the cliff below. It must have been a pretty safe and secure city perched high up, and easily defendable from all sides. We just explored the old abandoned houses and streets for awhile. It was really impressive. The stairwells and doorways were very small, you'd have to crouch in order to pass through the doorways and continue up the stairways. Some of them now had holes in the floors and ceilings that had crumbled and fell. But you could still discern where the kitchens were, and so forth. We saw a wheel in the entryway of one of the houses and I guessed it could have probably been the first wheel ever invented... hah. After that we began our trek down from Bayt Bous, and encountered a Yemeni who began talking to us, whether we were fasting etc, and then invited us to his house for the fast breaking meal. We politely declined and said we would just go to the gillave and eat. He pointed us in the direction of the best path down the hill, and we continued on until we reached this large body of water between two hills and held there by a giant dam made of rocks. We sat on top of this dam for a bit talking to Yemenis and enjoying the peace and quiet of the area and the beautiful scenery with the lake and surrounding hills and mountains. Then as we made our way down from the dam to the road below, we ran into the same guy who again invited us to his house for food, he really insisted that we come, so we figured why not, and joined him on the walk back to his house. Although there was a van stuck in the rocky dirt road, so we stopped to try and help him push it out, along with a bunch of other Yemenis. But it wouldn't budge, and it was a one lane road to leave this area, blocking in other cars. But there was a big truck and they chained them together to pull it out of the rocks just as we were leaving. I also saw a really strange bug, it looked like a praying mantis, or stick bug, just hanging out in the rocks. Anyways, we walked out to this guys house, which was just at the edge of the new Bayt Bous (located below the cliffs of the old city). I wasn't sure what to expect going to the house of a villager in terms of what his house was like or what we would be eating. But he had a huge sitting room, probably 3 times bigger than any (of the two) I've seen before. And we sat around talking waiting until the proper time. Tons and tons of food was brought out... We started with dates, of course, and some vegetables with dip, there was a delicious soup, Salta of course, Yemeni-style Pizza, bread, rice, meat, spaghetti (just the pasta, not the sauce), fresh mango juice, fanta soda, complete with a jello like dessert and tea. Another huge feast. We ate with him, a few of his relatives and his three sons. The food was very good, and he was very nice, to just invite in some random foreigners to join him. Oh and when we got there Sandra was asked if she wanted to join his wife, so she went off to the women's party for the time. After dinner we continued to sit around and talk for awhile, until about 7:30 and then his relative even drove the fours of us out of the city of Bayt Bous to the bus stop back into Sana'a. We made it back near Tahrir Square and then the four of us decided to stop at that juice shop and Sandra bought us all a drink. We sat around talking again for another hour or so, about all sorts of strange things... about Frog Juice that they drink in China, and more. Then we finally made it back to the Bayt at-Tulab and said bye to Adel and Sandra. I bought a Mountain Dew for the caffeine, because I was feeling pretty tired from that long hike and lack of sleep. Saw Matt again, I almost didn't recognize him because he got his haircut today but ended up nearly getting it shaved. I also got two calls that evening from who I can only guess was Ahmed... After that Matt and I headed out to the internet cafe to email and Skype my Mom, however I got a bad mic and I couldn't talk. It always works best when I bring my own microphone. After that I went on my own to the juice stand once again and got a large strawberry drink this time, as well as trying one of their fruit salads for the first time, which was really good, but was much much bigger than I expected, and I wasn't able to finish it. When I was walking back at about 2am, the power was once again out in the Old City so I had to walk back in the dark, luckily I have my little pocket keychain flashlight, which comes in handy often here. Got back and played my favorite game of Spider Solitaire for awhile before finally going to sleep.