Shibam and Kawkaban,
Yemen
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
1000 feet up, trailed by three "mountain children" (similar to mountain goats...follow at your tail, eat strange berries and grasses along the path and speak in gargled sounds), a Slovak by my side and about 2500 feet to go. To get to Kawkaban there are two routes: paved road via automobile or a stone stairway on foot. We opted for the third route - an off-road hike chosen by the appearance of having the least jagged rocks, cliffs and other fall-to-bloody-death traps. The route we - me, Gregor (Slovak), and Rich (Brit) - took happen to be fairly lush. The foliage consisted predominately of cacti, colorful flowers with massive thorns, and trees with spikes. Enormous spikes that tear into your flesh when you are more worried about not falling off the side of the mountain. And once you make it across the dangerous part you then realize that you have no less than 300 needles sticking out of you and wonder when you signed up for the complementary acupuncture session.
We finally made it to the top and I, who was hiking unveiled (haram!) quickly "suited up" in my hijab before the local men gasped in horror or perhaps the opposite. The town's specialty, as we quickly learned, is scissors. Yes, scissors. But what is better than a high quality pair of Yemeni scissors? A pair made out of an old missile shell. Welcome to Kawkaban. Creative and also fairly humorous. (check out the picture of missile-shell-scissor-making-man above)
Comments
Scissor making men
Where are the pictures of the crazy missle-shell-scissor-making-men?
yea...about that
Internet access here is dodgey, similar to the electricity which consistently around 11:00 every night shuts off for about an hour. What I'm trying to say is I was mid-uploading when the internet decided to stop working. The crazy-scissor-making-man picture is up now. cheers!
Scissor making men
Sounds like you've got yourself a nice situation there. What you need is a car horn that you can honk incessantly when the power goes out, perhaps that would help. At least the Yemenies would applaud your efforts.
Never rome alone. And don't forget your hat! Cheerio!