November 1^st, 2007 - Dar Al-Hajjar, Shibam and Kawkaban trip

I had visited Dar Al-Hajjar before so I brought my Arabic homework along in case I just wanted to sit under a tree and do some reading. This time, though, before the palace even came into sight, Assam pointed out the guard towers on every hilltop around us, and began explaining that so much food could be stored in the palace the Imam could live there for months without anyone having to leave. I hadn’t even noticed the guard towers before! From the courtroom outside the palace, to the women’s terrace five stories above,  Assam completely transformed the place in my mind as something much more alive and vivid, than the simply majestic “Palace on the Rock” that I had visited before. 

The magnificence of Dar Al-Hajjar is it’s position on top of a gigantic rock. (Assam jokingly pointed out that it should have been called Dar Al-Sakhr). The wells inside extending down to the caves that have existed there since pre-Islamic times are said to reach 275 meters deep[i]. It was a summer palace for the Imam, but Wadi-Dhahr, where it is located, is breathtaking and refreshing any time of the year. It’s a popular destination for Yemeni and foreign tourists alike. There were at least three different wedding parties visiting the palace and celebrating the day we were there. Assam made sure to point out the characteristic gold sashes on the grooms, but I had already recognized them by the garlands of flowers on their heads. We stopped to appreciate the drumming and dancing of the wedding party before jumping back in the civic to head to Shibam. 

Forty-eight kilometers northwest of Sana’a, and 2300 meters above sea level[ii], we stopped in Shibam for lunch at a hotel run by a very energetic woman and her children. The array was traditional, the bint-al-sahn was my favorite, and my Bee-Cola tasted just like Pepsi! We were fully charged for an afternoon of hiking around Kawkaban, located directly above us. The views from Kawkaban are amazing, in fact the view from pretty much anywhere in Wadi-Dhahr is amazing, but from Kawkaban you are looking down on the world as if (as Assam likes to joke) you are looking at pictures on Google Earth. In my wildest dreams I never imagined there was a place on the Arabian Peninsula that looks like this.