And the adventure begins.....

Thursday’s itinerary: meet at Nick’s place at 8:20 a.m., pick up our fellow travelers at the airport at 9:00 a.m., be on the road by 9:30 a.m. for our 5 hour drive to Shibam. Check in at the hotel around 3:00 p.m.

Thursday’s reality: we get a call at 8:00 a.m. telling us that Nick’s car is in the shop getting the electric windows fixed, as the air conditioner quit the night before – some ventilation would be nice in the 40+ degree heat (that’s Celsius folks, oh yeah). We were assured that it would be fixed by 9:00 and would only throw our schedule off by a titch. By 12:20 the whole group was questioning whether the windows were worth the Yemeni pace of repair. But a mere 10 minutes later we were on our way! Speeding towards carefree fun in the sun, we encountered our first checkpoint where the guards let us through with only 15 minutes of hassle and two phone calls - not too shabby. At the checkpoint they also had a lot of coconut vendors who gladly demonstrated the shucking/hacking technique employed to make a cute little coconut-cup from which to drink. Then we made our way up a steep, snaking road through the mountains – or tried to. We were halfway up – and way beyond civilization - when trouble announced itself with a sudden and very loud rattling under the hood.

It wasn’t nearly as serious as
it sounded, though: the alternator belt had started to shred, so the loose bits were cut free and on we went. Home free? No way. A few miles later, up on the plateau, that belt flew off and took the fan belt with it.

With a menacing hiss the radiator emptied itself all over the engine and, in the middle of a barren desert, the Land Cruiser ground to a sickly halt. The windows, by the way, stopped working about five minutes into the trip. Anyway we sat in the scorching heat for a bit until two trucks stopped (one with tools). Everything was fixed up (minus the alternator belt, voted unnecessary) and we nursed the car to the nearest “town”.

It was a desert truck stop with a little restaurant, so we decided to stay for a lunch of grilled goat and rice. The guys who stopped for us followed us there and paid for the lunch, the belts, and an oil change!

They wouldn’t take no for an answer, and the hospitality made us feel a little closer to home:)

We pulled into Shibam – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – around 7:30 p.m. Stay tuned for the rest of Yemeni Cricket’s crazy capers. Car trouble free - for the most part ;)