We were up at 04:30, but since we’d gone to sleep so early, we’d actually gotten 8 hours of sleep.  We saw that the right rear tire was completely flat, and hoped that it wouldn’t be an issue.  We re-arranged our bags, as we were constantly having trouble finding stuff.  After completing the process, we still hadn’t found the Cal Mag Zinc, but it turns out it was where it was supposed to be the whole time, just hidden by some of the other stuff in the same pocket.  Other organizational tasks this morning were cleaning sand out of the camera bag and cleaning the camera lenses.

After finishing all of this before 06:00, Justin was still bored, so he went for a walk whilst Crystal read.  One of the interesting things she read in her book was that the Croissant didn’t come from France, but rather from Austria, and was a not-so-subtle dig at the Ottomans trying to invade Vienna, hence the crescent shape.  Whilst Crystal was reading, a goat tried to enter the tent, after trying to eat the tent’s support ropes and also Crystal’s towel.

Meanwhile, Justin’s walk was down the road, towards the viewpoint location from yesterday.  He didn’t make it quite that far, but saw lots of other good stuff along the way.  It was amazing how deep, and how steep, the deep canyon is.  Justin had no clue how it could have been created, as it was in an area far too warm for glaciers.  Maybe it was part of the Rift Valley way back when?  Maybe it used to be far wetter in Socotra, and it was like the Colorado River?  The kids in the village right by the campsite excitedly said hi to Justin coming and going.  He got back 6 seconds before 07:00, when he told Crystal he’d return by.

At breakfast Muhammad, the campsite manager and leader of the village, showed Adham some important news about Yemen appointing a governor for Socotra.  “But it’s fake news” Adham told us.  It’s really sad that this phrase has made its way to such a remote place of the globe.  We hung out with the birds (starlings and Egyptian vultures, mostly) whilst Adham and Abdullah repaired the tire (again).  We saw the small nursery for Dragon’s Blood Trees, an enclosed area where small plants can grow.  The big plants are safe from goats, but the small ones are not, and so they need to be protected.  Sadly, we saw goats in the nursery, as they’ve figured out how to scale the rock wall that Muhammad built.

Once the tire was functional, we drove south, towards the coast.  We stopped after a bit, in a desolate area (which, comparatively, is saying something).  It reminded us a bit of Waikoloa on the Big Island.  There was a large ravine, but everything was dry.  We saw a Socotra fig tree in the same area, which was a tree Justin didn’t know existed.  We descended quite a bit to the south coast, where the ground was fairly flat.  On the descent Abdullah showed us a rock that looked a lot like a bear.  Driving along the south coast was like driving on the 5 through Camp Pendleton - low scrub with higher hills inland.  Adham told us something pretty funny, which is that many times when tires have small leaks, the holes will get plugged with condoms, and apparently they work fairly well.  

We stopped at a cave (Degub Cave), one much easier to get to than Hoq Cave.  The cave was very tall, but not very deep at all.  Adham told us it was basically a place for goats to stay nice and cool on hot days, and dry on wet days.  It was incredibly hot outside again, so the short walk back and forth to the cave was welcome.  As we walked back towards the vehicle, we saw that Abdullah had been inflating the tire whilst we were in the cave.  Because it was so hot, not to mention dusty, for the first time on the trip we had the windows up and the AC on.  Adham asked us if we wanted to visit the beach or some sand dunes next; we chose the dunes since we figured it was going to get only hotter as the day went along.

The dunes were pretty nice, and not very tall (at least compared to Arher); Abdullah was able to drive us halfway up to the top.  Once again, Justin’s clown shoes worked pretty well, like snow shoes on snow.  After seeing the dunes we stopped in the nearby village to inflate the right rear tire again.  From there, it was a short drive to Aomak Beach.  The beach was separated from the road by a massive forest of date palms that Abdullah had to navigate through.  Once we arrived on the beach we had a nice shady "cabana" to lay down in, covered with date palm fronds to provide shade all day.  When we arrived we had to kick goats out before we could lay down.

Crystal stayed in the cabana and read whilst Justin wandered out to the beach, which he had all to himself.  The waves weren’t that big, but some were fairly powerful, and Justin crashed in waves like he was 12 again.  After he finished playing in the water, he walked around and took some photos of the beach area.  He had to run back to the cabana from the beach, as the sand closest to the cabana was incredibly hot.  After an hour or two, the breeze picked up, which was nice, but then picked up more, which blew sand inside.  Abdullah got back around 12:30, at which point he and Adham prepared lunch for us.  

After lunch, we chatted again with Adham a little bit more about the war.  He said apparently everyone in mainland Yemen is armed.  Indeed, it’s probably the only place in the world with more guns per capita than the US.  By contrast, basically no one is armed in Socotra.  The only “war” is one of influence, where the UAE and Saudi Arabia are fighting for influence and hearts and minds in Socotra and smaller nearby islands.  The rumor going around is that there is a new military air base on one of the nearby islands, for the UAE.  Adham left after a bit to converse with one of his friends in another of the cabanas, and we discussed potential plans for the future.  Crystal floated the idea of spending maybe half of the year in Central Europe, half somewhere else, with Crystal choosing the former and Justin choosing the latter.  That worked for Justin as well.  We’ll see if and when that comes to fruition.

Around 14:30, we left the beach and headed back up the plateau…with a new right rear tire.  Abdullah had procured one whilst we were hanging out at the beach.  During the drive, Justin asked if he could walk back from the viewpoint spot from yesterday, i.e., if Abdullah could drop him off there.  He decided to go out at 16:30.  In the meantime, we both read our Kindles.  When Justin left, Crystal continued reading, and then took a nap.  Justin meandered around the plateau, moving up and down and side to side to frame trees, mountains, valleys, and occasionally some animals or motorcycles.  He got back just after 18:00, and inadvertently woke up Crystal in the process.  We just read until dinner.

Dinner was with Adham only, and it was some sort of macaroni shell dish - perhaps similar to other dishes but macaroni replacing rice.  We discussed Detwah Lagoon and Abdullah, the famous fisherman there who spends his days (and some night too) in a cave along the lagoon.  We also discussed Putin and Russian propaganda on TV.  We discussed the logistics of legally bringing plants out of Socotra - not possible.  We discussed volcanoes in Hawaii, and showed him some of our pictures and videos from the 2018 eruption.  Finally, we showed Adham photos from the Tsingy in Madagascar - he agreed with us it looked very similar.

This got the two of us wondering how many truly unique places we’d seen on the planet - places that didn’t have even a remote replica, inferior or not.  The only things we could think of were the “Cuernos” in Torres Del Paine, the salt flats and “islands” in Salar de Uyuni, Baobab Alley in Madagascar, and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.  We started to get eaten by mosquitoes around 20:30, and we headed into our tent for the night, reading until we eventually fell asleep.