the haraz mountains

over the week, i went on a few trips with muhammad 'the majnoon' to various places in the haraz mountains. the mountain scenery is absolutely breathtaking. i shot so many pictures but for real, they just don't capture the beauty of it all. there are villages on top of mountains and in the valleys. there are ruins of watch towers probably dating back to the himyarite kingdom (around 1 b.c.). i saw many fortresses on top of huge boulders and stone homes carved in the side of mountains. just imagine the grand canyon but a million times more stunning.

on the first trip, kyla and i went to wadi dhahr. wadi means 'valley'. actually, before that, we were taken to a mountain top where we could see wadi dhahr below us and also within it the famous daar al-hajar 'palace on the rock'. this mansion was built in the 1920s on top of a large boulder in the middle of the valley as a retreat for imam yahya (zaydi leader) and is a very popular place to visit on fridays by yemenis and foreginers. that's cause on that day you can see a barra'a which is a traditional dagger dance performed by the men. that specific boulder actually has a longer history and was probably settled by people a long time ago because of the deep wells and prehistoric cave burial rooms found in it.

that same day, we also drove to al-ahjar where we saw ruins of old homes and watch towers scattered around the mountain and built on cliffs, boulders or within the mountains. we also drove to shibam which is a city in the valley. we ate at a famous restaurant called hameda's restaurant. all the tourists go there. muhammad knows the owner. actually, muhammad knows everyone and everyone knows him. we sat in a private mafraj (room) and were served tradtional yemeni food. again, no individual plates. kyla, myself, muhammad and the taxi driver just ate from the same plate of food. we had meat, shafoota (kinda like the ethiopian bread, injera), vegetables, potatoes, saltah (piping hot stew containing meat, beans, lentils and topped with fenugreek...comes in a cast iron dish), 2 different types of rice, rashoosh (bread), something else that was really good and bint as-sahn (dessert). everything was so delicious.

we continued our drive up to kawkaban. this place is absolutely stunning. it's a fortified city that was built way before the 9th century on top of the mountain. there's only one gate to enter the town. from kawkaban, you can look down at shibam and from shibam, you can look up to the mountaintop and see kawkaban. you can also see in the middle of the mountain side, a home. it's the only home on that mountain side and only one gate to enter it. when you're looking up at it from shibam, you can't imagine how anyone could enter it. i told muhammad i wanted to go there. so once we got up to kawkaban, we hiked down to this palace. it was built by a man named ghayl ali. we entered it and rested while looking down the valley. it's probably not a place to go to if you're afraid of heights.

while going up and down the mountains, we also saw a vast number of qaat fields in addition to corn, wheat, almonds and some other stuff. but the majority was qaat. we saw people working in the fields too...usually women covered up...face and everything even though they were the only ones in the fields.

i still have to write about the other trips which i will do later. but alhamdulillah, kyla and i had a wonderful experience with muhammad. he wasn't really crazy. he's actually a good person to travel with 'cause he is well connected and very street smart. anyway, more later...