This is not really a plant expedition as the whole reason for being in Yemen was to help build the Sanaa to Taiz Road. At the time we were 2 people out of about 200 Europeans in the whole of the country and Yemen had just come out of 12 years of civil war and was still a pretty lawless place, with a whole complex structure governed in rural areas by local Sheiks usually with intense rivalry between each region which often erupted into open warfare.
However despite having to build the road in fairly extreme circumstances we managed every Friday to head for the hills in order to explore the country and look for plants of which we found plenty. So here are some pictures of some of the plants that we found. GPS had not been invented at the time so location data is pretty vague. We were based in a camp near a town called Yerim which was about half way between Sanaa the Capital city and Taiz the second largest town in the country and we did not have to go far from our camp in order to find our first plants.
Yemen is a beautiful country and we were very lucky to be able to explore it and discover some of its hidden gems. Furthermore the people were very friendly and during our excursions into the mountain villages we were always invited for endless cups of tea by the locals. When you read and hear of what is going on in Yemen today it can hardly be believed what a fantastic place it was to be in. A few pictures below to give you a flavour of the country we encountered.
More of this fabulous country will be explored in due course:—