Sana'a by Night

Sana’a is a must, however long the journey
La budd min Sana’a wa lau taal al-safr

It’s Christmas Eve and we’re sitting on the floor of the souq in Sana’a’s ancient quarter, scooping beans out of a metal bowl with chunks of bread as hundreds of people sell, buy and occasionally drive around us. With its centuries-old tower houses of brown with alabaster icing, all perfectly alive and well, this has got to be one of the most beautiful spots of architecture in the world. Sana’a will romance you by night, a fairytale setting of cobbled alleys and stained glass, secret gardens, a sudden outburst of souqs of coffee shells from Mocha, dates from Mecca. Cozy, grimy teahouses, roadside carts of boiled potatoes and hard crusty bread, little metal bowls sizzling with chickpeas and dark laundries that occasionally erupt with steam from gargantuan, ancient machinery. It is silly calling it Christmas Eve, of course – it could might as well have been Hanukkah, Diwali or Road Safety Week. Sana’a doesn’t care, nor should it. At an altitude of 2,200m and an age of 2,500 years it rises above most other capital cities in the world.



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