Back to Sanaa
30 April – I go out to wander in the old city and drop in the Arabia Felix hotel where I'd sent part of my luggage a few days ago in order not to carry it in the mountains. The hotel staff are very welcoming indeed.
In the afternoon I go to Wadi Dhahr to visit the Imam's palace, a sort of ancient fortress mansion guarded over by towers on the cliff along the brim of the valley. I go back to Sanaa, now steeped in a lovely oblique evening light, altogether different from the perpendicular one of the morning that didn't cast a shade at all.
28 April – After exploring Tawila I set out to walk to Kawkaban. I don't know if I will make it because it's a huge distance. Besides I feel out of sorts, arguably because of last night's dish of beans that left me with nausea. I walk for three hours and a half non-stop to get to Bukur. I arrive knackered and throw myself down on a stone to rest, altogether ignoring the children's proposals to show me the place's attraction.
27 April – As could be expected, immediately we opened the door this morning several children rushed in to observe us, then some adults too, among whom the one who was to turn into the day’s nightmare. This man, muttering some words of English, says he wants to take us to his house; he wants to hold us for lunch too. We excuse ourselves, we are in a hurry, Sarah has to take a plane at 6 pm at Sanaa. We cannot afford to tarry and forget our plan. But it's no use. He displays a blind and reasonless insistence without precedent. He says it’ll last just "one hours", betraying his real intention in the grammar mistake.
24 April – It has been a very active day. I left this morning at 8 with a guide and we climbed up a steep mountain side to the village of Hutayb and from there walked to a second village, al-Kahl, the destination of and Ismaeli Shia Muslim pilgrimage, above all from India. I left the guide in Manakha, where I had a mango shake, then walked up to Hajara in a taxi that took me on the road. I dozed off until 3 pm, but was already musing on the idea that a man gave me, that is to go for a loop walk around several villages on the other side of the valley, the one facing Hudayda, from which I arrived yesterday.