Trekking route from north to south

Like other animals living on the island the camels were taken to Socotra by people. Socotran camels usually lead the idle life by grazing on coastal plains.

Renting camels and a guide we started from Rush village located on Socotra’s northern coast. The first part of the road was the most difficult – it took us 2 hours to follow the narrow path leading up to Homhil plateau. To our surprise Socotran camels were climbing the mountain rather sprightly in spite of carrying our travel equipment, water and foodstuffs.     

Reaching the plateau we went through Homhil, which will be told about a bit later, and turned to the left. After crossing the mountain aboard camels we appeared in a rather strange place. The mountain-locked cup-shaped lowland covered a cave with the entrance hidden by a common pile of stones. Rainwater coming from surrounding hills soaked into the ground through many holes most of which were fully covered with grass. Cows, goats and donkeys were lazily grazing on a wide meadow.

After exploring a couple of entrances to other caves we continued our travel through Moomi Plateau to Matiaf village located on Socotra’s south coast. The road leaded through a picturesque canyon with a few deserted settlements where locals were cultivating terrace land some time ago.

It took us three days to make a one-way travel. Staying overnight on the shore of the Indian Ocean, early morning we set off on our way back and managed to reach the other Socotra’s coast as late as in the dusk, where we were waited by our jeep.