Socotra

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Dimanche 6 avril 2008

Soqotra - Fairytale Island

Finalizing our trip to Yemen we have spent one week on the picturesque island of Soqotra which was a really beautiful and amazing experience. We arrived in the early moring on Friday the 23th of March and were picked up by Fahmi who was to be our driver and guide for the next week.

La piste de l'aéroport est perpendiculaire à la côte et quand on arrive, on est à moins de cinq mètres au dessus de la mer, c'est impressionnant.

Fahmi, our Soqotry driver during the week

Fahmi

Soqotra is an island in the Indian ocean off the coast of Somalia. Once connected to the main land complex of Africa and the Arab Peninsula, which drifted apart millions of years ago and left the island isolated in the ocean developing into some kind of the Arabic Galapagos. Many animals and plants live on Soqotra that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The most impressive and strike one is probably the Dragon Blood Tree looking like a plant of another planet or the incarantion of a fairytale plant.

De cet arbre, le dragonnier, on tire la sève qui sert à la fabrication d'une résine connue pour résoudre bien des problèmes de santé. Cet arbre est en danger car on recense très peu de jeunes arbres, peut-être à cause des chèvres qui bouffent un peu trop tout...
Tous les mollusques terrestres, 90% des reptiles, un tiers des 900 espèces de plantes recensées sont endémiques, ils ne poussent que sur l'île.

Pour en savoir un peu plus sur Socotra...

La moitié de l'année, des vents de malade soufflent sur l'île, ce qui rend la pêche en mer à peu près impossible, l'arrivée des gros bateaux de provision difficile et l'atterissage des avions pas toujours évident...
Voilà une vidéo qui n'est pas de moi mais qui donne une idée du vent de Socotra...

60 noeuds de vent : trip kitesurf au Yemen via Zapiks

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Dimanche 6 avril 2008

The snowwhite beach of Deleisha and a lush valley for bivoauc

The first day started out with splendid Deleisha Beach covered with fine white sand. The whole place was deserted only with a few fishermen and goats around. We spent a few hours there stroling along the water and climbing up the high dune built of sand blown against the rocky hills almost looking like a ski slope in the alps.

After a lunch on the beach with local fishermen we continued along the coast heading east across wadis and along white beaches. A little later the paved road - one of the few on the island - ended and we continued on a dirty track. We ended our day at the foot of two hudge dunes devided by a small creek still carrying water despite the inexorable sun and heat persiting during most of the year on Suqotra. We pitched our tent next to the creek in the white sand among some bushes.

Deleisha Beach

Deleisha Beach close to Hadibo the bigest "town" of Soqotra, counting only a few house, one paved road and a small suq (market) with two hand full of stores.

Hadibo à l'heure de pointe

Autour du Wadi Alher

Autour du Wadi Alher

Les dunes du Wadi Arher vues depuis la route d'Irisal

Notre douche, Wadi Arher

Les pieds d'éléphants (bottle trees), dont cette sous-espèce est endémique à Socotra

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Dimanche 6 avril 2008

Globalization does not spare Soqotra

For the next day we had decided to get up as early as 4:30 before the sun comes up to experience the sun rising at Irsal the Eastern tip of the island and see the fishermen return to the beach after having been out the whole night in the hunt for fish.

Irisal, la pointe orientale de l'île

Le village des pêcheurs, Irisal

On our drive estwards we were welcomed by dolphines who often come close to the shore in the early morning hours. Only a little later the sun emerged from the sea and we had already reached the eastern tip of Soqotra totaling only 140 km in length. However, at around six the fishermen had not yet arrived and therefore we took our breakfirst waiting for them to arrive.

En attendant les pêcheurs... de bon matin, Irisal

Usually, the fishermen leave late in the afternoon the day before maybe around 5 or 6 just before the sun disappears. They go out as far as 50 to 60 km and spend the night on the open ocean. At dawn they wake up and start their work before returning to the shore.

Le retour des pêcheurs... Irisal

It was then only around 8 that the first fishermen arrived. While I had imagined them bring along "ordinary" fish, the catch of the day were sharks! The fishers had caught a few hammerhead and black tip sharks.

However, the catch is not for feeding the people on the island. The hunt is for the fins! A high demand coming from far east skyrocks prices and makes the fins a lucrative source of income in this place lacking poor of provitable labor. The catch of only a some kilos ensures a price of a couple hundred Dollars!

The meat of the sharkes is not consumed by the people and at the best exported to even poor parts of the world: Africa. Globalization has not spared this remote part of the world with only three planes circulating per week.

Tout ça pour ça... Les ailerons des requins sont appréciés au Japon et en Chine. Le reste de la chair n'est pas bon. Il est apparemment parfois envoyé en Afrique ... Les Socotris mangent les petits requins seulement.

L'eau rougit...

Remontée du bateau... tout le monde file un coup de main !

Les chants des enfants accompagnent le retour des bateaux.

After a good chat with the fishermen and the kids who have arrived in masses on the beach, the purchase of a fresh lobster we head back westward to spend the afternoon at the foot of a mountain after the exploration of the Hoq caves.