–
It was our first long journey in our new (8 year old) car. It is a white Landcruiser which is in very good condition and took a long time to find. Most of the cars here go around in a state of unroadworthiness. We had just about managed to get it serviced in time for the trip and left the none-urgent jobs till later- such as replacing the silly huge exhaust system which had been installed to make it sound like a racing car. Paul's parents and sister & brother-in-law were visiting us and for the last three days we were going for a holiday at the beach in Aden. Our Landcruiser has a third row of seats but to fit everyone's luggage in we put a big strong roofrack on top.
Gaffa tape saves the day
After a couple of minutes Kate, who was sitting on the back row, complained of a big draught coming through the rubber seal on the back window. I pulled over to have a look and just happened to stop right outside a hardware store. "Gaffa tape is what I need.", I thought to myself but then realised I didn't know the Arabic word for gaffa tape. "Tape" got me Cellotape, "tape, but like material" got me a roll of material but, third time lucky, "really, really strong tape" got me a roll of Gaffa Tape.
In-car refreshment
Having temporarily solved that problem, we carried on to Aden. Our new car has various electronic gadgets which don't work anymore -such as DVD player, multi-CD changer & SATNAV, but thankfully the aircon works really well and so does the drinks fridge! Feeling cool and having a cold drink while you drive makes the long journeys a lot less tiring in Yemen as it starts to get really hot.
Elephant bay
We arrived in Aden after about two and a half hours and went to our hotel -The Elephant Bay Beach Resort. It's called Elephant Bay because there's a rock formation that looks like an elephant (see attached picture). The hotel was right on the beach and was obviously not in such a good state of repair as it used to be in the old days of the British Empire! But we really enjoyed swimming in the sea and playing with Kira on the beach. She loved running into the sea at full speed and then running out again. On a couple of occasions we had to fish her out of the water to save her from drowning!
Never travel anywhere without Gaffa Tape
Aden is much hotter and more humid than Taiz so good aircon is essential for a good night's sleep. My mum & dad's aircon did not work very well and neither did the aircon in my sister & bro-in-law's room. Our aircon was effective but incredibly noisy because the casing was loose and rattled. A few strips of carefully placed Gaffa Tape solved that problem. Later we found flying ants coming out of a hole in the bathroom floor but solved that problem with Gaffa Tape as well. We woke up in the night because the aircon was working too well and we were freezing cold. .
