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Dar al-Hajar

Dar al-Hajar, or the Rock Palace, is one of Yemen's most famous landmarks, and if you make it to Sana'a, then you have no excuse for not visiting it as it is only a couple of kilometres away.
The palace was built for Imam Yahya as his summer home, and has recently been opened as a museum. There really aren't many exhibits inside, although some of the artwork is nice, but the main reason for entering is just to explore the building, and the view from the top is beautiful.
I have so many photos of this place...all of them pretty much the same, so I've chosen only one...in the foreground are my teacher Osama and his friend Abdul Kader. We took an afternoon drive out here on a mission to find the best qat and hottest saltah Sana'a has to offer, and so didn't really spend as much time as I would have liked to in Wadi Dhahr itself. However, during my first visit to Yemen, the mudeer (head) of the language school took me in his car, and we did all the touristy things like eat eggs while watching wedding parties dancing on the cliffs above dar al-Hajar, climbing the palace itself, and visiting the market in a nearby village.

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Dar al-Hajar from the valley floor...this is the first view you get after descending into the Wadi.

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From the cliffs above...if you hire a taxi for a tour of Wadi Dhahr (probably the best way to do it, as it isn't far), your taxi driver should bring you here for a view of all Wadi Dhahr...it is beginning to get touristy (or was...now there are no tourists in Yemen at all!), and there are usually many street sellers and wedding parties (see below!).

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Wadi Dhahr villages

The view from the roof of Dar al-Hajar. It is hard to believe that Sana'a is just a few minutes from here!

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Weddings

A fairly recent trend for Sana'anis is to follow weddings with traditional dancing in Wadi Dhahr. Most parties choose the cliffs above the valley as the venue, as there are usually many daytrippers there, and it attracts a fair amount of food and drink sellers...Friday mornings are almost carnival like...well as close to a carnival as Yemen could ever get! However, this wedding party decided to dance in the middle of a dusty road in the valley.
The dancing is different depending on the region the party is from...my friend informed me this group were originally from Abyan governorate, because of one particular dance they performed. One was a complicated ring dance involving lots of jambiyya thrusting and high speed turning, while the second involved only two...they each brandish a jambiyya in one hand and a head scarf wrapped around the other...the object of the game/dance is to try and grab the other's headscarf with your jambiyya, while whirling around keeping your own headscarf out of reach of your opponents jambiyya...obviously it is better for all concerned if you can get the scarf only, as no extra points are awarded to those who manage to get the scarf with attached hand as well! Some of these dances look extremely dangerous, as the ground is uneven, and most of the dancers barefoot...if someone trips, it is anyone's guess where the jambiyya may end up...

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I don't know why, but I've suddenly got into Black and White pictures! My scanner gives me the choice of scanning a photo in colour and in black and white, so I can have two versions of each photo! Which is better?