We woke up around 05:00, and took our last expected shower for a while.  We went to the Club Lounge right at 06:30 when it opened.  Unlike yesterday, Muslim guests were at breakfast today.  We went downstairs at 07:20 for our 07:30 pickup, and then waited and waited.  In our wait, we realized we’d missed taking our malarone.  We expended all that effort to get it, and then promptly forgot to start taking it on time.

As time went by, it reminded us of our trip to Bolivia, where we were waiting for our guide to meet us in Uyuni.  The front desk got a call at 07:45, saying that our driver would arrive in 5 minutes.  In actuality, Ali came and got us at 08:00.  He told us that our original driver overslept, that he’d enjoyed Eid a bit too much.  Ali asked us about where we were going, and what we’d do in Socotra.  We told him that there was just the one flight a week.  He started to say “So if you miss your flight…” when Justin cut him off mid-sentence, saying “You’re going to help us make sure we don’t miss our flight.”

To his credit, he did his part.  We could constantly hear the automated warning signal stating “Speed limit exceeded” as he drove 140 down the highway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.  We saw a couple camels, but frankly there wasn’t much of interest between the towns.  Thankfully, the Abu Dhabi airport is on the northern outskirts of town, so basically the first thing you get to when driving from Dubai.  We got to the airport just after 09:00, and saw “Socotra” on the board as an Air Arabia flight, seemingly like any other.  There were already lots of people in line, and one of the employees told us that we needed to do a Passport check first.  It was never explicitly stated why this was necessary, as this was different from immigration.  They literally just checked our passports and put an “ok” sticker on the back.  Our best educated guess is that they were checking for Israeli stamps, which disqualifies someone from visiting Yemen.

After the passport check, we then got in the normal line for check in.  They asked to see our Yemeni visas, which we’d printed out in color.  In short order, we got a boarding pass, just like any other flight.  This was a big surprise to us, since everything we’d read indicated that this flight was special, a chartered plane basically.  The flight doesn’t have an IATA number, and can’t be purchased through any “normal” channels.  Putting everything together, our best guess is that because of the war in Yemen, “normal” flights are not available, so a company basically chartered a 737 (like basketball teams used to do back in the day), and then sells tickets on their chartered 737 through the specific channel that Julian used to get our tickets (WhatsApp of all things, we think).  Then, the company that chartered the plane hires Air Arabia to run the flight for them, with check-in, food, seat assignments, etc., such that when a customer shows up at the airport, it looks and feels like a normal flight.  Anyway, that’s our guess, we could be totally wrong.

But before getting on the plane, we had a snafu that was anything but normal.  At the immigration area with automatic gates, Justin couldn’t pass, and was routed to an immigration desk, where the agent asked when he entered the country and whether he had another passport.  Apparently the immigration agent at Dubai neither scanned nor stamped his passport, so there was no record of him validly entering the country.  Crystal was fine, which we think made the immigration agents less likely to think something sinister was going on.  Justin had to go to an office in the back, where he tried to remain calm as an officer went through his passport multiple times, then asked about his entry details, and typed a bunch of stuff into the computer.  After about 5 minutes, everything was all good, and he went back to the immigration desk where he got both an entry stamp and an exit stamp.  

We had no issues at security, and right after security we sat down near our gate and decompressed.  It was only 10:15, and our flight wasn’t until 11:55, but it had still been quite a stressful morning between the late pick-up and the immigration issue.  We were in a tiny part of the airport, and it was fairly basic and mundane, like Terminal 1 in San Diego.  There weren’t a ton of food choices, and we didn’t want to get anything “cold” that might make us sick if it wasn’t sufficiently cold, so Crystal got a pizza and Justin got chicken strips.  At the gate, there was an interesting mix of young backpacker types, wealthy locals (we could tell by their clothes and bags), and one white family with a 10 year old daughter.

Boarding the plane was like boarding any US flight.  Ironically, we had no window seat today, when we would’ve wanted it.  Once more it was super hazy outside.  We flew almost due south over UAE and Oman, just east of Salalah.  We got food service on the flight, and there was an in-flight magazine that had stuff on Amman, Istanbul, Bishkek, and Almaty, which was kind of funny since we’d visited all of those places.  Crystal got some sleep on the plane, which was good since she missed the guy across the aisle and one row ahead puking his guts out.  Justin surmised he wasn’t a frequent flier.

We landed around 13:00, as Socotra was in a time zone one hour west of Dubai (and Seychelles and Mauritius), so our two hour flight was effectively just one hour.  We went down stairs to exit the plane, and all went into a fairly small room filled with everyone meeting their guides, almost no one wearing a mask.  It is a good thing Justin is tall, as he was able to spot our guide, Adham, from across the room and maneuver us over to meet him.  We got our passports stamped with a Yemeni stamp, meaning that Justin received 3 stamps in one day.  Since it was just the two of us, as opposed to all of the other big groups that were on the plane, we were able to get to “baggage claim” earlier than others.

We waited about 5-10 minutes for the bags to arrive, but after getting our bag, we couldn’t leave, and we weren’t sure why, but no one seemed that stressed or nervous.  We found out shortly afterwards that they wanted everyone outside parked in a different spot, and waited for everyone to move their car before letting us go.  We met Abdullah, our driver.  They asked us if we needed anything in the one “city” on the island, Hadiboh, and we indicated we were all set.  We drove east through the city and out towards Homhil.  There were beaches on one side, and mountains (and clouds) on the other.  There were tons of goats, everywhere.  Hadiboh was full of trash, and the goats were eating the trash, basically everything but plastic.  

We briefly stopped at a lagoon with a bunch of date palms, and then kept heading east, passing a pier and a beached oil tanker.  We went off the paved road after 90 minutes or so, taking a rough road northeast from the center(ish) portion of the island.  Adham said that this was the “good” road, built 2-3 years ago, and was much better than the 20 year old road nearby.  As we ascended, we started to see Dragon's Blood trees, the famous Dracaena cinnabari, and also some Frankincense.  Adham mentioned that the area we were, Homhil, was the only place on the island with plentiful amounts of both Dragon’s Blood trees and Bottle Trees (Adenium obesum socotranum).

Seemingly out of nowhere, we arrived in camp.  We met a local guide who was going to help us walk to a natural infinity pool with a view of the coastline well below.  Justin was  futzing with his new pants that were too loose, and he had no free hand because of the water bottle we each were handed.  He had to keep stopping, which visibly irked the local guide.  In addition to the trees, there were lots of Tsingy-type rock formations, but on a smaller scale than we saw in Madagascar.  

We were hiking through an area that normally would be full of water, but there wasn’t anything today, which at least made the limestone and granite not slick.  It took us about 20-30 minutes to get to the end of the trail and the infinity pool.  The pool at the end wasn’t much to speak of, since there had been basically no rain this year, and we were at the end of the dry season.  Despite that, we still had a great view.  Whilst stopped, Justin took off his pants and just used his shorts, figuring any bites or scratches would be less annoying than having to stop constantly.  Adham showed us some freshwater crabs, and said that they were unique in the world (maybe because they were freshwater instead of saltwater?).

We had to turn around relatively quickly since the sunset was approaching.  The local guide was in an even bigger hurry on the way back; meanwhile, Justin, now comfortable, was still stopping, this time to take photos.  Crystal told Adham that he takes a bunch of pictures, but would eventually catch up.  Crystal saw the local guide gesturing to hurry up, and Adham briefly chatted with him, and then the local guide went on his way.  She’s not sure if it was a polite or impolite conversation.

We got back to camp very sweaty.  When we stopped walking, we could hear the mosquitoes, so we put on some spray ASAP.  Adham and Abdullah put our tent up, and it was almost comical how large it was for just the two of us.  It easily could have fit six people.  Justin went out to take more photos whilst they finished the tent.  Once the tent was ready and we went inside, it was scorching hot, with bugs, and we were each pouring sweat.  Between the two of us and a headlamp that attracted the bugs, we killed almost all of them in a great example of teamwork.  Outside, the four of us chatted for a bit, and the wind mercifully picked up.  We sprayed again anyway, just to be safe.

We chatted some more whilst dinner was finished by a local cook, who was the total opposite of the local guide.  The Yemeni Civil War came up, and Adham’s description was basically the same as what we’d seen online.  The 30,000 foot level description is that during the Arab Spring in 2011, the President (Saleh) quit, and the Vice President (Hadi) assumed office.  But after two years, people were dissatisfied since Hadi wasn’t deemed to be any better than Saleh was.  The Houthis, a Shiite minority from the Northwest corner of the country, took over the Yemeni capital of Sana’a.  In a case of strange bedfellows, they actually made a truce with Saleh to give some additional credence.  Hadi escaped from Sana’a, and eventually from the country into Saudi Arabia.  Since then, the Houthis have received “support” (the degree to which is a point of contention) from Iran, and the displaced “Yemeni” government is supported by Saudi Arabia, and there’s been a proxy war that has absolutely crushed the people of Yemen and accomplished nothing.  Once it became clear that Saleh might support some sort of truce, the Houthis killed him, so the strange bedfellows didn’t stay on the same side for long.

As it relates to Socotra, there hasn’t been any fighting whatsoever.  Instead, neither the Houthis nor the displaced Yemeni government have been able to do squat for Socotra, as they have bigger issues to deal with.  Because of a power vacuum, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been doing “infrastructure” diplomacy in Socotra, providing new schools, hospitals, roads, etc.  No one is entirely sure what will become of Socotra, and how the UAE fits into things.  In the war they were originally aligned squarely with Saudi Arabia, but now they seem to have pivoted slightly, supporting a third entity, the South Transitional Council, who seized control of Socotra in 2020 and seem to want to split Yemen into two parts, North and South, which is how things were many decades ago.  The UAE seems to think this is just fine, but Saudi Arabia doesn’t want to have a Shiite government on its border, so Saudi Arabia continues to try to win the war for the deposed Hadi government.  It was interesting hearing how nonchalant the description from Adham was, as while Socotra is in Yemen, all of the war and intrigue is literally and figuratively far away, and life in Socotra really hasn’t been impacted too much, aside from a precipitous drop in tourism for a couple years, first from the war and now from COVID.

Dinner was rice, curried vegetables, and roast chicken.  For something whipped up in the middle of nowhere, it was very tasty.  We were very tired after dinner, and realized that with the hour time change it was 21:00 Dubai time.  So we bowed out and went into the tent.  There were no more mosquitoes or bugs inside, but it was still quite warm.  We had a mattress, a blanket that covered the mattress, and another blanket that we could cover up with if it got cool enough.  Suffice it to say we didn’t need or want to cover up tonight.  We wrote down all the day’s events before forgetting.  It was one of our more schizophrenic travel days, with a bunch of high highs and low lows, a real roller coaster.  But we’d made it to Yemen, and if nothing else we’d seen some of the Dragon’s Blood trees.