Shilal Wadi Bana'

Yesterday, a friend and I returned from our trip to see Yemen's most notable waterfall - Wadi Bana'a, near Ib. The waterfall itself was a little bit challenging to find and not as impressive as the waterfalls I've seen in Australia, but still it was a fun adventure and as always, the trip was a great way to practice Arabic conversation.

We left at about midday on Sunday and took a service taxi from the Farza (service taxi station) just up the street from Bab Al-Yemen. We paid for 3 places, instead of just 2, because the taxi drivers like to pack 4 people into the 3 seats of the middle row of the Peugeot and that tends to get really uncomfortable after 5 hours. When we arrived in Ta'iz one of the guys from our taxi, who happened to be a Checkpoint soldier on his holiday break, took as to the Shareef Hotel which we planned to stay at. He also offered to take us to his house for dinner but I declined because I didn't want to miss the South Africa v Argentina game which was going to be on tv that night.

I stayed at the same hotel last time I was in Ta'iz and as I remembered it's reasonably priced and comfortable. Initially they asked for 5,000 riyals for a two bed room but we managed to talk them down to 3,000 riyals. Note: If you ever happen to want to visit that hotel make sure you say "Funduq Ashreef" and not "Ashraf" because you'll be directed to the Ashraf area of the city which is about 5 kms from the hotel. (that was a mistake I made last time during my second trip to Ta'iz).

For me the real purpose of visiting Ta'iz again was to see to the waterfall at Wadi Bana'a. So on Tuesday morning we decided to try and find that waterfall and it turned out to be quite a bit more difficult than I anticipated. First we caught a service taxi to Ib. We stopped there for lunch and then asked a taxi driver how we could get to the waterfall. He told us he would take us to a taxi which could take us to Kitaab and then we could catch another taxi to Wadi Bana'a. I'm pretty sure Kitaab was on the main road between Sana'a and Ta'iz so we could have just caught a taxi from Ta'iz to Sana'a and opted to get out at Kitaab but anyway... we took a taxi to Kitaab and saw some really impressive mountain scenery along the way. Our taxi struggled a few times and broke down twice like the timing was off in the engine but we still arrived in Kitaab 1 hour later.

At Kitaab we found a second taxi, a Hilux, which was going to Sadda and we were told the Shilal (waterfall) at Wadi Bana'a was located at hiking distance shortly before the town of Sadda. From the road we were told the Shilal was located 'down' from where we were and a boy from the Hilux acted as a bit of a guide for the start of the journey. After a few minutes he left us so we continued as instructed in a 'down' the mountain kind of direction. We asked an old man where the Shilal was but like our previous taxi he didn't really seem to firing on all cylinders. 15 minutes later or so we followed the sounds of rushing water to a small water fall which appeared to be man-made. Channels had been constructed to irrigate the fields of corn and wheat we were walking through and the channels led to this small man-made water fall.

The mini water fall was nice but I was convinced it was the same waterfall I'd seen in the buffet restaurant at the Mövenpick in Sana'a and so we followed the channel upstream. Further upstream the channel led us to the backyard of an older Yemeni lady who seem quite frustrated that an Australian had wandered into her backyard. She was there with something like 10 children and although she talked to us with a harsh tone I'm pretty sure she just wanted to know what we wanted. Once she understood what we were looking for she ordered about 5 of her kids to escort us in the correct direction. The kids led us in between cacti and thousands of pickly bushes and more channels and when they seemed sick of directed us they told us just to head 'down' and we'd find the waterfall. Shortly after we were abandoned we hit a fork in the road - cacti to the right and pickles to the left. My fellow explorer opted for the right so we headed down the path amongst the cacti. Not long into our new direction the boys yelled at us from above to tell us we had taken a wrong turn. So we headed back through the cacti back towards to the prickles.

The boys thought we having too easy of a time with the cacti so they spiced up our adventure by throwing large rocks at us. My friend claims one large rock almost hit his head but there wasn't much we could do from our position - those kids were too quick for us to catch for a talking to. A little further down the prickle path we met some Yemeni women walking in the opposition direction and they told us to follow the path to the waterfall. The women were young and seemed quite scared of us so I wasn't instill with much confidence in the accuracy of their directions. A few minutes later we arrived at a river bed and followed it upstream. Not long later I could faintly hear some falling water and a few corners later there it was - Shalal Wadi Bana'a. It wasn't huge, the volume of water wasn't all that great and it wasn't quite as free from rubbish I had hoped but at the time we were really glad to see it. We climbed up the waterfall with our backpacks and made it up the main face but the second face was much too steep and slippery to climb so we had to turn back.

It was about 5pm by that time so we hurried back up to the main road to find a taxi back to Sana'a. When we reached the road a Nissan Patrol stopped to pick us up with Kuwaiti number plates. The driver was super generous. He stopped to give us a ride to the village of Sadda without hesitation and then when in Sadda he drove around asking for a taxi for us to return to Sana'a in. After he found us a Hilux and we said our goodbyes he did a U turn and was asking us about money. We both thought he was asking for a bit of money for giving us a lift to Sadda and helping us and we were both happy to give him something. But when he repeated himself we realised he was asking us if we needed money to pay for the Hilux!! I don't think I'll ever find a finer example of generousity and hospitality than that.