hot volcanic water explosions

The weekend in Yemen begins on Thursday, which this week included a school field trip with one hired driver, our school's groundskeeper (Am, which means "uncle" -- he's very old, and yells at everyone/everything), 3 teachers, and 5 students (including us). The day trip, advertised as "hot volcanic water explosions for men and women" (which we translated into: "come see a volcano and then go to the hot springs where men and women can have separate baths") marked our first time out of Sana'a. We got to the school at 7:00 where a "bus" (small, 1980's Toyota van) began to drive us southeast of Sana'a. Hundreds of small towns with houses built on top of huge rocks dot the countryside. An hour into our drive we pulled over in a small town to witness a massive swarm of locusts. The entire sky was grey with the insects, and the locals were rejoicing, kids leaping through the fields to catch the grasshopper-like bugs (many the size of a small hummingbird), for later eating. People were offering them to me, telling me how to best cook and eat the locust. As we were leaving, some guy ran up and put a water bottle full of living, squirming "treats" into my hands. I responded "no thanks," which was probably rude, but i just didn't want to see them go to waste. Not too far from the locust infestation, we heard a loud bang on the side of the car, scaring the shit out of us; the tread on our back tire had shredded. Fortunately/conveniently we were just 200 feet from a tire shop. The tire was quickly fixed, and we we got back on the road, driving for less than an hour when, BOOM! The spare popped. Now, several miles from a tire shop, the taxi driver and (old) groundskeeper, Am, decided on a plan of attack, which included reinstalling the first failed tire with a broken crank, which the taxi driver nonetheless twisted and turned futilely in the jack while Am dug out a hole around the area with a small rock. One reinstalled, the threadless tire limped us along to the next town, where we stopped to eat a breakfast of scrambled eggs & bean pancakes (and where the driver replaced our defective back wheel).

Some four hours after our initial departure we arrived in Hammam al Dimt, a small town with dirt roads (many of them almost completely obscured with trash). The town boasts a volcano & hot spring, which we had envisioned to be an outdoor spa, perhaps at the base of the volcano, and hopefully offering scrubs & massages. We started our adventure in Hammam al Dimt by climbing the volcano, an arduous task for Morgan in her restricting "thobe". Our hike was rewarded with a lunch of individual chickens, rice, marinated veggies, and soda (with pull tabs!), although this fantastic meal almost didn't materialize because Am got into a vicious argument with the restaurant staff, who seemed to be on the verge of kicking us out. Food was followed by a visit to the much anticipated hot spring....which turned out to be more of a bath house attached to a hotel, about 2 miles from the volcano. Morgan & I had our own private bath (like a really deep 2-person hot tub constructed of slate tiles). Our cold water tap was out of order, and without some cold, the hot (volcanic) water was essentially unbearable. The vision of an outdoor natural pool with spa-like treatments turned into an odd sauna experience, but was refreshing nonetheless. We began the journey home at 5:00, and again, our taxi ride was plagued with tire troubles. The back wheel (this time on the driver's side) had some sort of nail lodged in it, and instead of just replacing/fixing it, the driver stopped every hour or so to refill the leaking tire with air. In addition to our multiple pit stops, the driver also managed to get us lost, not once, but three times, and one of those times after we had arrived back in Sana'a, the groundskeeper, Am, yelling at him the entire time.