the Adventurer
Arrives on the Island

A hot wind dishevels my hair. It snarls, rumbles, and builds to a full roar, pulling at my clothes and pushing as if to knock me over. I cling to the handrail, taking a careful step forward. So, here I am. Socotra! Ahead of me lie the stairs down the aircraft, a short stretch of eroding tarmac and further in the distance: one of the strangest places on the globe. Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, north of the Seychelles, due east from the Horn of Africa, far out in troubled waters circled by pirates, Socotra island is both paradise and hell on earth. Being a territory of Yemen, a crumbling state and al-Qaida stronghold, it ranks as one of the poorest, most desolate places on earth. But the mysterious Dragon Blood Tree, the Socotra Cormorant, seven kinds of frankincense – a most extraordinary endemic wildlife and an unwordly landscape all add up to the great bizarreness of Socotra.
So here I am – at last. For years, I have been reading whatever I can find: from ancient Egyptian descriptions to reports from 20th century expeditions. I conducted many hours worth of interviews with people who knew the place. So now it is my turn to be here, and what is more: at the height of the stormy season. With the wind violently pulling at my hair, I carefully descend the steps onto island soil. The curiosity inside me is overwhelming – as is my anxiousness. Ahead of me lie the western foothills of the Haggier Mountains, pushing up 1.500 meters into the sky like water-eaten sugar cones, with clusters of clouds rushing over them. Ahead of me also lie a couple of weeks of intense exploration and adventure.
Socotra is a lone island in the Indian Ocean, tectonic in origin and situated at 12°30’36” North and 53°55’12” East. Its nearest mainland is Somalia, 240km away. Socotra is sheltered by steep cliffs with a flat coastal plain in the north and a much smaller one along its southern shore. Behind the islands capital town Hadibo, the cliffs rise to mountains, summiting in the over 1500m high Hagghier. Steep-sided gorges and valleys cut through the central highlands. The only inland waters are small creaks gushing through the valleys. Only few are perennial and there is little arable land. The island was inhabited since the Stone Age but only discovered by Portuguese sailors in 1503. For centuries, the ‘Sheikhdom of Socotra Archipelago’ was part of the ‘Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra’ before being incorporated into modern Yemen less than 50 years ago.
Remote and well secluded, Socotra features a unique plant- and wildlife. I had read about mysterious Dragon Blood Trees that were said to have originated at the very spot where an elephant – in his death throes – had buried the last dragon beneath him. I had been told about a landscape that was otherworldly. And I had heard about natives that dwelt in remote mountain caves and lived in harmony with nature. I had come to discover a paradise – remote and mystical – and I was excited to do so.
More than 20 million years ago, great things happened that changed the face of our planet for ever: The primeval supercontinent Gondwana started to break into pieces. Africa, America, Australia, Asia, and Europe split up into the continents they are today and one of the crumbs that broke off Gondwana and drifted into the ocean was Socotra. Throughout the million years that followed, sea levels were constantly rising and falling, often by several hundred metres. Nonetheless, the highest peaks of the Hagghier Mountains on Socotra always poked out of the water just as the Arabian Sea surrounding the island was always deep enough not to dry up and form a land bridge to the African continent. This made Socotra one of the most isolated landforms on earth of continental origin and it allowed the unique endemic plant- and wildlife to prosper.
There is neither summer nor winter on Socotra. The island misses out on autumn and certainly on spring. Instead, you get the monsoon: from May to September, the north western monsoon accelerates along the coast of Africa, blowing straight over Socotra – right now felting my very hair and ripping at my clothes – towards the Indian sub-continent. Celebrated in the Punjab for its fertile rain, it is dust-dry when roaring over the island. Before collecting humidity on its way across the Indian Ocean, the storm is loathed on Socotra: literally mind-blowing, it not only causes head-aches but also precludes any sea-passage to and fro the island. Dates are blown off the palm trees before ripening and sand is blasted through every crack. Whoever can, flees the worst hit northern shore to the wind-protected inland. After some four to five months of torturing storms, global thermals suddenly change – the north western monsoon dies, giving way to the wet south eastern monsoon. Rain makes the deserted, but fertile soil blossom within no time at all.
The plants native to Socotra have adapted perfectly to the harsh conditions on the island. They have developed special water storing abilities which botanists call succulent. The Desert Rose is one of them. Its trunk, gray as elephant’s skin, also has the shape of an elephant’s leg. At the top of this oversized hulk, a couple of diminutive and rudimentary twigs branch out with not more than a very few leaves. It may be the ugliest rose in the world. But it blossoms all the more beautifully and delicately in a bright, rich pink. An outspokenly lazy plant, its only indulgence is its magnificent blossom while it never develops more than the absolute minimum of branches and leaves necessary for survival. Thanks to its bleak and simple exterior, it needs only little in order to survive – in fact, the Desert Rose is one of the very few plants that do not need any rain to flower.
Another plant, «Caralluma socotrana», whilst needing water to flush its flowers it requires only very little rain to do so. Its deep red blossoms are a delight for the eyes; opening-up like a trumpet, they are star-shaped with red fringes. Being a succulent, like the Desert Rose, it has adapted to the arid climate on Socotra by having no leaves at all. Drizzle or even a few clouds are enough to set off its magnificent bloom. It is, however, infamous for its smell of shit, a scent supposed to attract pollinating flies.
And then there is the most mysterious of all trees, which covers the hillsides on the back of the Hagghier Mountains: the Dragon Blood Tree. Looking down the steps of the airplane I arrived with, over the eroding tarmac of the airstrip, I saw the Hagghier Mountains rising into the sky behind the shack doubling as arrival hall. Then invisible for me behind the mountains was the the Diksam plateau. There, it is said, is a whole forest of these mystery trees. Firmihin is a small hamlet of two or three houses at the edge of the plateau. It is a ten-hour trek away from the capital Hadibo and two strenuous hours away from the next dirt track that is negotiable all year round by off-road cars. But with every sweaty step up the steep, wall-like slopes of the gorge, the landscape becomes more bizarre and the vegetation more psychedelic. The parasol-shaped crowns of the Dragon Blood Trees shade some goats or a few cattle that are grazing in between the trees. Up at the village, one of the islanders collects firewood to boil rice in sour milk for supper. The place seems to rest in eternal peace. As soon as the sun slowly sets, tinting the sky in all shades of purple, somebody will call for prayer and the villagers will gather under a Dragon Blood Tree for the Islamic sunset prayer. A mystical dreamlike cognition, bemused of the intense and unworldly impressions of this place must overwhelm any visitor. The enchantments of the Dragon Blood!
Unrivalled nature is not the only thing on Socotra that survived through the ages. The isle’s natives are a non-Arab Bedouin people of obscure origin who live in old tradition. They speak a peculiar tongue which is said to resemble the ancient dialect of the Queen of Sheba. The majority of the Socotrans are sedentary and settle along the northern shore but semi-nomads live up in the mountains and on the central plateau.
Socotra is an island which the world has passed by. Some 200 miles off the coast of Arabia, shrouded in clouds and beset by monsoon winds, it has one dirt airstrip and no year-round safe anchorage. This does not put off pirates. Circling the Arabian Sea on search for vessels to seize, they beleaguer the isle. Regularly, the buccaneers land on Socotra in want of provisions and fishing boats. Several islanders have been captured by pirates, fishermen have lost their boats. I heard that two Somali buccaneers are currently in captivity in the jail of Qalansiya at the north-western tip of the isle.
But even the pirates – though for many a long year not flying the Jolly Roger anymore and not training parrots to cry out “Pieces of Eight” – add to the otherworldliness of this very isle. A bizarre landscape, natives of obscure origin and rich tradition, and dreamlike primeval plants – I came to explore all that. The lure was the intrinsic fascination of this strange and beautiful place. I came to discover a paradise, remote and mystical, and I was excited to do so. This was better than the text books.