Socotra

Socotra is the island that evolution kept for itself: three hundred and fifty kilometres off Yemen's coast in the Arabian Sea, closer to Somalia than to Aden, it broke from the mainland so long ago that a third of its plants live nowhere else — the dragon's blood trees of the Dixam plateau, umbrellas of green on the limestone whose red resin dyed the violins of Cremona; the bottle trees of Homhil, swollen and pink-flowered on the rock; the cucumber tree; the frankincense — and its landscapes are as strange as its trees: the white dunes of Arher piled against a cliff by the monsoon, with a freshwater stream running through them to the sea; the lagoon of Detwah at Qalansiyah, where the fishermen live; the bay of Shuab reached only by boat among dolphins; the cave of Hoq running kilometres into the mountain; the Haghier peaks at fifteen hundred metres in the cloud. Hadibo is the one town, with the airport twelve kilometres west where the weekly flight from Abu Dhabi lands; there are no hotels beyond it, and the island is travelled by 4×4 and slept in tents on the beach. A UNESCO site since 2008, it flies Yemen's flag and lives, these years, its own separate calm.

The traveller who has cause to be there takes the weekly flight, which sets the length of the stay, and goes round the island with a Socotri guide and driver in the order the tracks allow: Dixam and the dragon trees on the first day, the canyon of Wadi Dirhur below for a swim; Homhil for the bottle trees and the pool at the cliff's edge; Arher for two nights on the sand between the dune and the sea, the stream to bathe in and the climb of the dune at dawn; Qalansiyah and Detwah for the lagoon and the fishermen's boats, and the boat to Shuab; Hoq's cave with a torch; and Hadibo's market on the last morning for the honey and the frankincense. The nights are on the beach under a sky with no lights for three hundred kilometres.

The Guide's honesty, gently: Socotra is at peace and its flights are real, but it flies the flag of a country at war, and the chancelleries' counsel against travel to Yemen covers it — the Guide does not argue with them, and this page keeps a patient lamp, ready for the day the island's calm is the country's; for those with cause to be there, the visa and the flight are arranged together through the island's operators, the stay is a week whether one likes it or not, the comforts are a tent and a fire, the cash is dollars, and the courtesy of the Socotri is complete; the monsoon closes the island from June to September; and a dragon's blood tree on the Dixam plateau at first light, with the mist in the canyon below and the sea beyond, is one of the last sights of another Earth, which is why the Guide keeps this lamp lit.