Check out our Shipping Rates - check here for our holiday shipping schedule
Tough Guy Sahl-Sahl Al Hassine's buddy and his favorite waterfall. |
Trusty No. 11 and jambia Well armed, but for no apparent reason than looks. When Ali told me that it's simply a tradition to have a gun around in rural areas, I told him it was just about the same in the US, it's just the guns look a little different. This one is called the No. 11, from Russia. |
Sahl Sahl Al-Hassine Fires No. 11 It's also typical that, on special occasions, you take a few shots. Mr. Al-Hassine had first honors |
Ali and No. 11 Ali had the next shot... |
Huge Boulders and Caverns The creek made it's way between massive boulders where it formed interesting pools ... this one looked like an indoor bathtub, hidden from the heat of the afternoon sun. |
Weird Eye The water had carved out some intereresting shapes, including this eye-like slit, where the person in front of me because the pupil. |
Azure Pools We followed the streambed back down the valley from the waterfall, where it formed interesting pools with water-carved rock all around. |
Coffee Under Shade Trees Along the base of the valley was coffee, planted on every bit of arable land, with shade trees above. You can see this on the right here. |
Yemen Mokha Shibriqi Here we found a distinct type of the Mokha seedstock, Shibriqi, with it's brown tips (new leaves). |
Green Shibriqi Here are unripe green Shibriqi coffee cherries |
Rounded Shape of Shibriqi Mokha Shibriqi coffee cherry is smaller than Tufahi, and has a very rounded shape |
Tight Squeeze We came to a place where you had 2 rather unattractive options; to traverse across a narrow path on all fours, with a 50' drop below you, or to make your way between 2 boulders down to the stremabed, and jump the last 6 feet. I chose the former, Duane chose the later (he's in black). |
Ali down below Ali poses atop a rock down below. |
More Shibriqi trees In a shaded part of the canyon, the coffee looked fairly good |
Yellowing cherries Here we found coffee cherry that was turning yellow, but it is not a yellow cultivar (ie. turns yellow when it ripens). This appeared to be a nutritional problem, or lack of water. It looked to me as if there was very little composting, and the soil around the coffee appeared too fine, too heavy, too silty, without organic material. |
Stressed Coffee Trees Out in the full sun, the trees looked depleted, a combination of needs for both water and nutrients |
Checking out the Coffee Cherry We came across a guy resting after picking some coffee (not the guy in the image - that's me.) In Central America you see pickers with huge amounts of cherry, but with such low production in Yemen, with so little coffee in the trees, this was a miniscule bag in comparison. |
Odd Mix The cherry here was a combination of ripe, under-ripe, and these odd yellowish cherries I mentioned before. This is not a great example of ripe coffee harvesting. |
Portrait with Coffee Cherry Of course, they wanted a picture with the tiny bag of coffee cherry. Saih valley, Yemen. |
Friendly Yemeni Lizard This is the only one that would stay still for a photo. |
Tufahi Mokha Coffee Cherry Tufahi Mokha Coffee Cherry on the tree. This is probably the most production I saw on any tree in Yemen, which is not much compared to other origins |
Tufahi Mokha Coffee Cherry The larger, apple-shaped coffee tree with the slightly conical cherry form. This is one of the most cherry-laden branches I saw on the whole trip! Saih Valley, Yemen. |
Moo Yemeni cow and calf drinking up the cool water in the Saih Wadi. |
No Wonder There is a reason that the town's look a little desolate; they are! In many of the coffee areas, over 80% of the rural population has moved to Sana'a, where jobs are more plentiful. Then they send money back to the coffee areas to help their extended famlies |
Saih Valley Coffee Family He wanted a picture with his little boys and girls... |
Mule Power Much of the hauling is still donw by mule. Since the road ends at the town, everything past there, including access to all the coffee, is by mule (or human) hauling. |
Townies I had a lively soccer match with these guys, and suddenly school was out and it was like 20 on 1! I played goalie and they all took shots. |
Hidden Puppy Power This little guy was rooting around for food, and hid in the rocks when I tried to take a picture of him. |
Qat, the edible part Qat is very mild really, but is a stimulant. (If it was something, like alcohol, that could lead to unconciousness, it would be forbidden under Islam). You eat the very fine leaves and stems from the tips and outer branches. |
Chat Time. Well, it's chat in Ethiopia and Qat in Yemen. After an incredible meal, we had some more quality qat time which always includes a lively discussion. chewing these shrubs makes you feel more like a wandering goat than anything. |
Qat residue With much flourish, they toss the inedible, undesireable parts into a big pile on the floor. |
The Southwest In places, the terrain is so much like the United States Southwest. |
Arizona or Yemen? You can forget exactly where you are. |
Sunset in Saih Valley, Yemen Sunset in Saih Valley, Yemen |
Time to head home... We stopped a few times on our way back to Sana'a that day for pictures ... |
Checkpoint There are a lot of military checkpoints in Yemen, and they definitely were extra interested in our car, since we had 2 Americans in there. |
Along the Road: Here's a collection of random photographs along the way between growing regions. Basically, the major coffee areas are all on near Sana'a, to the West. The exceptions are Raimi and Dhamari to the south, both whicha re at lower altitudes and produce less interesting coffees. We stopped in small roadside towns to eat, to check out the qat markets, and (for me) to gawk a bit. This place is just so fantastic. |
|||
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Passing through small towns, taking pictures from the car, like a coward. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Lively discussion over vegetables. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Lotsa nice old Toyota Land Cruisers here. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Arguing with friends |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Shooting off some fireworks... |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen You don't see this often, a destitute person. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Probably covering themselves due to dust on the road, more than anything. Wish I had one ... the dust was killing me. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Qat in the foreground, town, and terraces for agriculture. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen Oops ... with the way driving is in Yemen, I was surprised not to see more of this. |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen They seemed to have walked off and just left the car like this |
Typical Roadside View in Yemen New Mexico, or Yemen? The rocks weren't telling. |
Toyota Art Again, great bright painting on the Toyotas |
Page 1 | Page
2 |
Page 3
| Page 4 | Page
5 | Page 6 | Page
7 | Page 8