Holidays

So after Christmas we taught for a couple days until the week-long festival of Eid, during which we travelled.

First it was off to Sana'a. We spent the first night inside the walls of the old city, which was fantastic. Our hotel was 355 years old, though, which makes it quite new for that part of town (it's the building on the left in the picture below).














It's one of the highest buildings inside the wall so the roof commanded a spectacular view:














And this is a spectacular view of the water closet:)
















On our third day there we left Sana'a to go see House on the Rock, about a half-hour's drive from the city. This thing is probably the single most famous object in Yemen. It's a big house on a big rock. The oldest part is over 2000 years old. The great thing about it is that most of the house isn't what's on top; most of it is inside the rock. There's an entrance at the very bottom, and rooms and staircases and ancient wells go all through it.







This is us hanging out with some friends in the burial cave near the top of the rock, and a view from one of the cave's windows.





























We relaxed in the courtyard for a while and then returned to Sana'a for some shopping. The next morning we flew back to Mukalla and rested for a day before making the five-hour drive inland to Shibam.