My first night in Sanaa, as we were coming out of the restaurant, Benjamin, Élise, and I ran into a couple from Milano and a woman from Torino. They had just spent two weeks touring Yemen in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle. It had cost them $900 or $64 a day. They had gone up north and had done the desert run from Ma'rib to Wadi Hadramawt.
I wanted to do the desert run.
The next morning I went to a travel agency that I will not name, since the results were ambiguous; if it had been all bad or all good, I'd name them. In the office was a tall, slender, very bright man named Adam who looked more African than Yemeni and spoke excellent English. He told me that because there were so few tourists in Yemen--``Look out there! Nobody! Normally this time of year that square is full of tourists! What is the matter with them? Don't they know if we give them a visa, we guarantee their safety?!" he would give me a 4-wheel-drive with a driver for only $50 a day. He recommended a ten-day trip. I revised it down to seven days. $350. Then there was the desert route. Until a few years ago it was the only way to get from Ma'rib to Wadi Hadramawt. But then they built an asphalt highway that arcs to the north. If I wanted to take the desert route, I'd have to pay another $200 for a Bedouin escort.
I would take the road to Ma'rib, then the desert route to Wadi Hadramawt where I'd see Shibam, Say'un, and Tarim. I'd go via Al-Hajjarayn along a dirt track to Al-Mukalla on the coast. I'd return on a paved road that ran a little inland from the coast, through Al-Baidha, Rada, and Dhamar.
I tentatively agreed to it and said I'd let him know, and I went to explore other possibilities.
At a travel agency down the block, the price was $60 a day, and I didn't like the man as much as I liked Adam. Several other travel agencies were closed.
I walked around the old town. The buildings are mud adobe towers six or seven stories high, lining narrow streets. Their windows are outlined with all varieties of whitewashed geometric patterns--I counted eight different patterns on one building. The men in the street mostly wore the same thing--a white ankle-length jilaba, an ordinary Western suit jacket, and a wide woven belt with a large, curved, green-handled knife jammed into it. The few women who were out all wore black, head to toe, making them curiously invisible, as if one cut their figures out of a photograph and left only the black album page behind. There were the minarets of more mosques than I could find on my map. The streets crooked back and forth, ended unexpectedly, narrowed and then widened into plazas. Overall, the city is as unique and beautiful as Venice, although in an utterly different way.
I worked my way toward Bab al-Yaman, the main gate of the old town. On the way I passed two men with bags of qat. Qat is universal in Yemen. It is the leaves and sprigs of a plant. Men chew it and leave the pulp in their mouths to suck out the juices. The taxi driver in from the airport had had a mouth so full of qat that his words couldn't be understood as we tried to bargain with him. Just as in India one sees sidewalks speckled with the red splotches of betel that people have spit out, the narrow streets of Sanaa were speckled with the light green splotches of qat. Lonely Planet reports that the men of Yemen often spend 25% to 50% of their income on qat.
One of the men offered me a sprig and I took it. He was selling bags for 100 rials. I offered him 50 rials for the sprig, but he refused it. It was bitter. It reminded me of my reaction to the bitterness of coffee the first time I tried it--people use this stuff?--but it was certainly tolerable. It was like, well, chewing on leaves.
From Bab al-Yaman I plunged into the crowded market along Taiz Street. I bought a stick of miswak, their other unique chemical habit, and chewed on it. It is supposed to have genuinely healthy effects, as well as functioning as a toothbrush. It had a very strong radish taste.
Originally I had wanted to go to Yemen with my son William. He had lived a year in Cairo and spoke Arabic, and it would be great fun exploring the countryside with him. I'd have paid his way. Several weeks before I left, however, he said he couldn't go. He works in the internet industry in Los Angeles and said he was the only person he knew who had a job. He didn't want to risk it by going on a two-week vacation.
Before September 11, I had figured I'd split the cost with other travelers who were going the same way at the same time. I was sure I'd run into them once I got to Yemen. But after September 11 the tourists were few and far between. I asked Benjamin and Élise in the taxi in from the airport if they wanted to join me, but they planned to stay in Sanaa for ten days first and arrange their visas for Eritrea and Ethiopia.
At breakfast the first morning I met Heinz, the Austrian doctor with the UN in Syria. But he and his friend were at the end of their trip. They visited Aden by bus and had to get lots of permissions. When they arrived, they were the only tourists there. His friend had a roll of film confiscated by the police when he inadvertently took a picture of a military installation.
As I walked in the newer part of town in the afternoon, I saw a lone tourist. Artur was from Poland. He had recently arrived and was also looking for someone to go to Wadi Hadramawt with. I asked him if he wanted to join me, and told him what I had found out. He said maybe. He said there was a group of seven Italians at the Gundan Palace Hotel, where he was staying, and he was thinking of joining them. We traded names.
In the afternoon my goal was to go to the Government Tourist Office to see if it was possible to go around the country by bus, and then to the Gundan Palace Hotel to find these seven Italians. Thus began my experience with service taxis at 15 rials a shot. You flag them down on the street and crowd into the tiny vehicles with half a dozen other people, and you hope they let you off where you want to go. The tourist office was on Cairo Street, said one of my maps. The first service taxi let me off too early. The second one let me off too late--I think they thought I was going to Cairo, and were taking me to the airport. I asked directions at an airline office and then at a hotel, and was finally directed down a side street to the right place.
A bunch of men were lounging around drinking tea. They told me I could take public transportation via Al-Mukalla on the seacoast to Hadramawt. Permission would be immediate as soon as I gave them my itinerary. But going to Ma'rib by bus was impossible. This was all in a mixture of English, German, Arabic, and charades. Meanwhile, someone called someone who spoke English, probably a tour operator, and he told me it was impossible to go to Hadramawt by bus, even via Al-Mukalla. New rule, just today. I suspected he was lying.
To get to the Gundan Palace Hotel I asked at another hotel--they had never heard of it--and then a rental car office--they looked it up in the phone book. I was told to take a service taxi to the Mustashfa Quwait--the Kuwait Hospital. I did, but the driver forgot about me, and had to do a U-turn. I asked a few more people. Down a side street, right into an alley, left into another alley.
Artur's information turned out to be very confused. The tour operator he had talked to wanted $90 a day. The seven Italians he said were leaving tomorrow had left yesterday. And Artur had apparently checked out of the hotel this morning. So I was alone again.
At dinner on the roof terrace of the hotel, I joined Benjamin and Élise again. I told them I was paying $550 for seven days to Wadi Hadramawt and back. I would be glad to have them along for whatever they wanted to contribute. Benjamin was very tempted. It might be the only way for them to see Ma'rib on their budget. But Élise vetoed it. She reminded Benjamin they had agreed to take a relaxed trip, and were going to spend several more days in Sanaa. Spend the days here after Hadramawt, I suggested. She wouldn't feel relaxed until they got their visas for Ethiopia, she countered. She dug in, and I saw that I had lost.
So I was going to tour the country alone, as I had feared, bearing the whole expense.
The next morning I went back to the travel agency. There was no getting around paying in advance, so I gave him $300 in travelers checks and $250 in cash, hoping that he wasn't the sort of person who goes through a personality change after he has been paid.
I'm not cheap. Okay, I probably am cheap. When I pay for something, I like to make sure I get what I paid for. I hate being surprised by extra expenses along the way.
``What about other expenses?" I asked. ``Gas. The driver's meals and hotels."
``All included," Adam said. ``You pay nothing more."
He said my driver would be at my hotel at 8 the next morning. The police convoy for Ma'rib, he said, leaves at 8:30 every morning.
That evening I got a call from the travel agency, asking me to come to their office. They didn't say about what. I sensed trouble. No doubt problems requiring more money and/or delays. Just in case, I took my passport and $200 in cash with me. As I walked over there, I thought out various contingencies. I wondered how long I could delay the trip. I imagined demanding my money back. I could fly to Hadramawt and back. I developed various Plans B, C, and D.
When I got there, five men were sitting around the room. A heavyset Arab named Khalil was clearly in charge. He explained that the police were not permitting traffic on the Sanaa-Ma'rib road for the next two days. So what they proposed was to reverse my trip. We would first go south from Sanaa and along the coast to Al-Mukalla and up to Hadramawt. Then I would take the desert route to Ma'rib and the last day back to Sanaa.
``What if the Sanaa-Ma'rib road is closed that day too?" I asked.
``We'll know that when you are in Shibam, and you can fly back," Adam said.
``How much is that?"
``About $100."
``That would make the trip two days less, and no desert track. Would I get my $300 back?"
``We still would have to get the car back. That takes money."
``Two days at $50 a day," I said.
Adam said, ``We would take the asphalt road, not the piste, so you would get $200 back."
That all sounded reasonable, since my Plan C had been to fly there and back. I brightened. I was introduced to my driver, Faraj, a quiet man sitting in the middle of the group. He seemed friendly and intelligent. They sent out for tea. Then we had an intense conversation on the future of Israel and Palestine that I'll describe later.
The next morning Faraj picked me up. We drove south from Sanaa to the town of Dhamar, where I walked around the market, and turned east to the town of Rada, where we ate lunch.
Faraj's meals were supposed to be included in what I had already paid, but he nevertheless told me to pay for lunch. He said it was 600 rials, enough for both of us. But when I gave the man behind the counter a 1000-rial note, he only gave me 200 rials back. I was buying lunch for Faraj and being cheated by the owner to boot. The amount of money was insignificant, but I hate it when people try to exploit me.
That afternoon we reached Al-Baidha. Faraj drove to a hotel and said this was the place we were staying. They showed me a dirty depressing room for 1500 rials, with a squat toilet across the hall. Faraj wanted me to stay there, since then he could get his room free. I wanted to look at the other hotels mentioned in Lonely Planet, so we went on. The next hotel we stopped at had a very unpleasant man behind the desk, who said he only had triples for 1800 rials. This room was dirty and depressing too. We went to a hotel next door. By now this room looked pretty good. I liked the proprietor, an old man with a twinkle in his eye. He asked me for 1600 rials. We went through all the steps of bargaining, working through a script toward the number we both knew we'd end up with, with a palpable sense of irony. I paid 1100 rials. I asked Faraj if he could make a deal for himself, and he said not to worry about him.
The next afternoon near the town of Habban we encountered a group of Austrian tourists who had already been to Wadi Hadramawt and were on their way back. They had especially loved the desert route. They had spent the night on the desert with their armed Bedouin escort guarding them from the top of a sand dune.
But I was beginning to doubt that I would ever see the desert route. There was the problem of the Land Cruiser. In Rada I had to help push it to get it started.
The next morning all the water had evaporated from the battery. A mechanic from across the street filled it up and worked on the engine a bit, and the car started.
That afternoon Faraj stopped at a gas station for a long time. A mechanic was underneath the car banging on something with a hammer.
``What's the problem?" I asked Faraj.
``Oil leak," he said.
The car had been making a terrible sound whenever he turned too sharply to the right. He investigated. The right end of the bumper was pushed almost into the wheel. Some men pulled it out. He told me that after our meeting in the travel agency office the night before leaving, he had taken a friend to the airport, and had gotten into an accident.
Our first stop in Wadi Hadramawt was to be Al-Hajjarayn in Wadi Daw`an. There were two ways to get there--from the south a long way over a very bad dirt road, and from the north only a few miles over the bad road. Adam had constructed an itinerary for me that had me coming in from the south, which he said was more scenic. But when we got there, Faraj vetoed it. It would take us an entire day, he said. Then when we got to the northern end of the Wadi he was delighted to see that in the time since he had last been here, a new paved road had been built as far as the village we were going to.
One evening I asked Faraj if the car was his or the agency's. He said it was his. I knew at that point that he was unlikely to want to take it across rugged terrain of any sort, including the desert.
In Shibam Adam called from the travel agency and asked how my trip was going. I said Yemen is beautiful and Faraj was terrific. He said that was good, because he wanted their American friend to have a wonderful trip.
Wadi Hadramawt's three main towns, Shibam, Say'un, and Tarim, are all within twenty or thirty kilometers of each other. My itinerary had us staying one night in each and then spending a day crossing the desert to Ma'rib. But Faraj told me the desert route would take two days, ``Okay," I told him, ``we'll visit Say'un and Tarim both in one day, and then spend the two days getting to Ma'rib.''
``Yes, but that's not good for me,'' Faraj said. ``We will take the asphalt road."
``I didn't pay $200 to take the asphalt road."
``The $200 is the charge for going through Bedouin territory, whether you take the desert route or the asphalt road."
``Maybe they charge $200 to take the asphalt road," I said with barely concealed fury, ``but that's not what I was told, and I never would have paid that."
Faraj said we could take an ``excursion" into the desert, three or four hours. I wasn't interested in an ``excursion". I wanted to go from Point A to Point B on a desert track, not because it was a fun thing to do but because that was the way to get there. Okay, maybe the asphalt road was now the principal way to get to Ma'rib, but I wanted to take the old route.
``Take the desert route, and I'll throw in an extra $50 for the wear and tear on your car," I said. ``If not, I'll want my $200 back."
``But there's a problem," Faraj said. ``The Bedouin guide lives in Ma'rib, and I called him this morning. He's already on his way, and he's already been paid."
Now I really felt cheated. There was no way around it. $200 for an asphalt road. ``I'm a customer, not a natural resource," I said.
``What's the problem?" he replied. ``The car is on the asphalt road. The desert is right over there," pointing to the right. ``Right over there," pointing to the left.
In Tarim I phoned Adam at the travel agency again and said Faraj was intending to take the asphalt.
``What?! No! You paid for the desert track and that's what our American tourist will take! Let me talk to Faraj."
When Faraj handed the phone back to me, Adam had capitulated. He said their were two desert routes, one through the ancient town of Shabwa (which was never under consideration) and one that shares a bit of the route--maybe ten or twenty kilometers--with the asphalt road. That's the one we were going to take.
``Sorry for the misunderstanding," Adam said, ``but Faraj doesn't speak English very well."
``He speaks it just fine," I said.
I saw that I was not going to get my money back and I'd get what I'd get. I got out my map, and Faraj showed me in vague gestures where we were going to go--the asphalt road most of the way, plus a ``five or six hour excursion into the desert". Earlier he had said a ``three or four hour excursion". It was clear I would not see my money again, and my problem now was to get the most from what I had already paid.
The next day was very strange, in ways that I will describe here and in the next section as well.
Faraj had wanted to begin early so we would have time for the desert excursion. I got up at four and by four thirty was in the lobby.
Faraj came down at five, and we got in the car and left. As we drove past Say'un, I noted that we had not picked up the Bedouin guide, although at one point Faraj had said that's where he would be staying. Perhaps farther along.
Just outside of Shibam we had a flat tire, on the right rear wheel. Faraj told me afterwards it was the first flat tire he had ever changed! The jack didn't work. It wouldn't go up or down. We flagged down passing cars to ask if they had a jack, but they all denied having one. So Faraj built a small pile of rocks and drove the flat tire up on it, while I blocked the front wheel. He was able to jam the jack under the rear shock absorbers, but for all his fiddling with the jack with half his body under the precariously perched vehicle, he couldn't pump it up. He was able to get the rocks out from under the wheels and pull the old tire off. The car wasn't high enough to put on the spare tire. So he dug a hole under the wheel with his lug wrench until he could. A half hour lost.
The spare tire was bald--too bald to imagine crossing the desert on.
We drove through Al-Qatn and Al-Hawta to the turnoff to Ma'rib, where we stopped for gas, for breakfast, and to get the flat tire fixed. Faraj disappeared for a bit. When he returned, he said there was a problem.
``With the car?" I asked.
No, he said. He had left his money belt under his mattress back at the hotel in Tarim, two hours back. He had to drive back for it. He would leave me at Shibam, where I could do more sightseeing until he returned. What I had paid the travel agency was supposed to cover gas, but of course I had to pay for the gas here. Faraj had no money.
In his hurry to get back, he honked everyone out of his way. He honked goats off the road. He even tried to honk a rock off the road.
We reached Shibam at 8:30 a.m. Faraj assured me he would be back in an hour, but I knew it would be two hours, since Tarim was an hour away. I left my suitcase in his car. I spent an hour exploring more of Shibam. Then I returned to the hotel, drank three small cartons of cold mango juice, and lay down on the wide cement railing around the veranda. I looked so uncomfortable that the hotel caretaker brought me a pillow. After half an hour of this, I sat in the lobby with the caretaker for an hour and watched an American TV show about dramatic rescues from raging rivers. I was getting more and more nervous about where Faraj was, and when he would return, and I regretted leaving my suitcase with him. Maybe he had broken down. Maybe this was his plot to stay in Shibam that night and avoid having to drive his limping Land Cruiser across the desert.
At moments like these, I tend to engage in what I call ``Plan Z thinking". Plan Z thinking is when you think things like, ``I'm going to kill myself, and won't that make them sorry!" I formulated a plan to take a taxi toward Tarim until I saw him and retrieve my suitcase. Then I would take a taxi to Ma'rib. I even asked a taxi driver outside the city gate how much a ride to Ma'rib would be. Finally in my growing panic I called the travel agency in Sanaa and told Adam what I intended to do; he said I couldn't. I simply couldn't. I paced nervously in the shade of the driveway.
At 12:20 Faraj showed up, ready and impatient to head for Ma'rib.
``Another flat tire?" I asked him, suppressing my anger.
No, he said. Someone had stolen 10,000 rials ($60) from his money belt at the hotel in Tarim. He had to report it to the police, but it could have been any one of five people making up the rooms. It wasn't found.
We drove off again, through Al-Qatn and Al-Hawta and to the turnoff for Ma'rib, where we had lunch at the same place we had had breakfast. I paid for it with the money Faraj had paid me back for the gas.
We had not picked up any Bedouin guide, whose existence I now doubted.
At first the desert was dry sand and gravel with buttes in the distance. Then the buttes receded, and the desert was flat as far as the eye could see. We saw occasional small herds of camels, rare people, almost no other cars. At 3:25 we reached Al-Arn, a concrete block village whose distinguishing feature was a large tire dump. At 4:50 I noted that the scenery was flat sand, disturbed in the distance by an occasional mountain.
My ruminations were mainly about what I would do to get my money back for the nonexistent desert route and the nonexistent Bedouin guide. I would threaten the travel agency with a Lonely Planet web site posting. It was clear by now that because of the morning's disasters, I would not even get the excursion into the desert.
Finally around 5:30, as the sun was going down, we reached an area of dunes. Time only for a few pictures. And that was the desert I had paid $200 for.
The next night, a Monday night, I was back in Sanaa. I went to the travel agency office, where Faraj, Adam, and others gathered every evening to chew qat. They greeted me happily and offered me tea, and we talked about the adventure of it all. Then I raised the ``difficult" question--my $200. I wanted it back.
Adam agreed with me that the asphalt road didn't cost $200, but they had already paid the Bedouin guide. The problem was that I had advanced my schedule by a day. The Bedouin guide was now in Say'un waiting for me. It was all my fault.
``I think the Bedouin guide is a fiction," I said, ``and the desert track was paved over two years ago. Give me my $200, and you can work out with the Bedouins who's going to absorb that loss."
Khalil said, ``That's impossible. If any tour agency makes trouble with any of the Bedouin guides, the Bedouins won't deal with them anymore. We would be out of business." The other men nodded.
I could not use my best arguments, because it would involve criticizing Faraj. Saturday morning Faraj had told me the Bedouin guide was already on his way to Say'un; he would have been there by Sunday morning, not Monday morning as Adam was saying. But we never picked him up. The reason I wanted to leave for Ma'rib a day early was that Faraj had said the desert route took two days. On Sunday morning I kept waiting for Faraj to stop someplace to pick the Bedouin guide up, but it never happened, and when Faraj screwed up and forgot his money belt, we no longer had time even for the excursion into the desert. Furthermore, I knew that Faraj had no intention of taking his Land Cruiser into the desert; he would never subject it to that kind of wear and tear.
But I couldn't blame all this on Faraj, because of what else happened on that trip.