High in the central highlands of Socotra, the landscape of Diksam Plateau can look deceptively calm at first. Wide limestone ground stretches outward, the plateau feels open and exposed, and then suddenly the land gives way. The surface breaks apart…
High above the coastal plains of Socotra, the island changes character completely. The road climbs into the central highlands, the air cools, the land opens up, and the scenery becomes drier, stranger, more skeletal. Wide limestone surfaces stretch across the…
After the hot coastal plains of western Socotra, the road to Diksam Plateau feels like a hard reset. The climb begins gradually, then the land starts lifting in earnest. Cliffs appear along the horizon, the road bends higher into the…
The central highlands of Socotra feel very different from the island’s coastal plains. Roads climb gradually through rocky slopes until the land opens into a vast plateau where dragon blood trees grow across the landscape. Above this high region rises…
Shoab Beach sits out on one of the loneliest sections of Socotra’s western shoreline. You don’t just drive there. The road network stops earlier, around the fishing village of Qalansiyah, and after that the island basically tells you to switch…
Just outside the fishing village of Qalansiyah, the western coastline of Socotra suddenly opens up. The road drifts toward the sea and then — almost casually — the landscape spreads out into Detwah Lagoon. A wide, shallow basin of turquoise…
Qalansiyah is the kind of place that doesn’t announce itself. No dramatic arrival moment, no sign saying you’ve reached something important. The road from Hadibu just keeps going — long, pale stretches of dry coastal ground, bits of stone, wind…
Hadibu is almost never the reason people come to Socotra — and yet nearly every trip across the island passes through it. After hours of driving across dry plateaus, coastal plains or rough mountain roads, the town appears along the…