“Just wait here a bit longer!” It’s already been an hour and a half since my attempt at trying to enter Yemen, accompanied by my driver. Everything is so easy on paper, the easy way to Yemen, go to Socotra Island, a Yemini tropical island close to Somalia, everything sorted, visas, documents, etc by the tourist agency, just my way is more complicated, trying to get in from the Omani side, about a 2 1/2 hour drive away from Salalah, a major Omani city. I feel like this wasn’t one of my better ideas, wishing that I had just taken a trip to Socotra Island, instead, there’s a possibility that I won’t get into Yemen, instead go back to Saudi Arabia tomorrow and perhaps try from there, flying into Jazan or Najran, which are both relatively close to Yemen.
The situation is not so good in Yemen right now, there are a few different groups that run different parts of the country, the Houti rebels control Sanaa, the capital city, along with a lot of other territory, even Aden, which has one of the busiest ports in the Middle East, another affiliated group control another part of the country, and the government control just a fraction of what they used to control, for example, Hawf, the fishing village that I’m attempting to visit, which has never been under Houti control.
Another few awkward conversations later with another border patrol agent and things are still not looking good. It’s not exactly clear what the problem is, I’m just told to leave everything up to my driver who picked me up from Salalah Airport this morning. It’s a mix of things by the looks of it, perhaps the security situation has gotten out of control, perhaps they are suspicious and think that we are trying to smuggle Khat back into Oman from Yemen, or maybe there is a problem with the documents or perhaps other stuff. We are just playing the guessing game now and my driver is also more anxious than me, in fairness, if we are denied entry, it’s not the worst thing in the world, at least it was an attempt.
The time passes by and the level of frustration is at boiling point. We’ve been stuck here for close to 2 hours and we presumed we would pass into Yemen within 10 minutes on arrival. Again, I’m told to just wait and let my driver deal with everything, he has all the necessary documents
Finally we are gifted entry into Yemen after about 3 hours at the Omani side and just about 5 minutes at the Yemini side and we drive all the way to Hawf after all the painful waiting and uncertainty. The reason for the holdup was unclear, but the reward of entering Yemen was worth it, one of the most difficult countries to reach in the Middle East!
