Socotra Island, Yemen, is a place that simply blows away any notion of what is considered “normal” for a landscape found on Earth. Imagine waking up on Socotra Island and taking a good look around you (let’s say your buddies pulled a prank on you and delivered you there, or, what’s more likely, you barely escaped from the pirates of Somalia). After a yelp of disbelief, you’d be in- clined to think you were transported to another planet—or traveled to another era of Earth’s history. The second would be closer to the truth for this island, which is part of a group of four islands that have been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last six or seven million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, So- cotra is teeming with seven hundred extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full one third of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

 

The climate is harsh, hot and dry, yet the most amazing plant life thrives there. Situ- ated in the Indian Ocean, 250 kilometers from Somalia and 340 kilometers from Yemen, the island’s wide sandy beaches rise to limestone plateaus full of caves (some seven kilometers in length) and mountains up to 1525 meters high. Derived from a Sanskrit name meaning “The Island of Bliss,” Socotra’s alien-looking plants could have served as H. P. Lovecraft’s secret inspiration. Was the creator of the fa- mous Cthulhu myths aware of these forbidding mountains with their hauntingly weird flora (think of plant mutations from Lovecraft’s The- Color-Out of Space)? We are tempted to call Socotra the other “Mountains of Madness.” The trees and plants of this island were preserved through a long period of geological isolation, some varieties being twenty million years old.

 

We begin with the Dracaena cinnibari or the Dragon’s Blood Tree, the source of valuable resin for varnishes, dyes, and “cure-all” medicine; also (predictably) used in medieval ritual magic and alchemy. Its branches spread out into the sky and appear to hover over the landscape like flying saucers. Viewed from above they have a distinctly mushroom look. There is also the Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum) that looks like nothing so much as a blooming elephant’s leg. Next look at Dorstenia Gigas apparently it does not require any soil and sinks its roots straight into the bare rock. Somewhat similar to Dorstenia Gigas is a “bucha” vegetable, found as far north as Croatia. It looks like it could be pregnant with something malignant inside its sack. John Wyndham, author of The Day of the Triffids would have loved it. Also found in Socotra’s landscape is the ever-strange and extremely rare Cucumber Tree (Dendrosicyos socotranum) - and yes, it’s related to what’s sitting in a pickle jar in your fridge.

 

The island is a birder’s paradise as well, with 140 different species of birds, ten of which are not found anywhere else in the world. A unique Socotra warbler, Socotra cormorant, sunbird, starling, bunting, sparrow and cisticola are among the ones found here.

 

 

 

 

Want to see some fairy-tale (and possibly haunted) shipwrecks? There are diving tours available. Getting around, however, can be a challenge, as there are almost no roads (camel rides are vastly preferable to bumpy and slow 4×4 rides). Despite the fact that this island has around 40,000 inhabitants, the Yemeni gov- ernment put in the first roads just 2 years ago after negotiations with UNESCO, which has declared Socotra a World Natural Heritage Site. As a result, it is a quiet and peaceful enclave in an otherwise troubled world. If you decide to visit there, you can forget about beachfront hotels and restaurants; this island is geared to- wards eco-tourism and sustaining the local economy and way of life.

 

 

 

So what otherworldly landscape comes to mind when describing So- cotra? Dune? Myst? Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique? Pack your bags, for this place is located on good-old planet Earth, no interstellar visa required The Richat Structure, or The Eye of the Earth located in Ouadane, Mauritania is not really a structure but an enormous circular formation (50 kilometers in diameter) that resembles an eye when viewed from space. Originally thought to be a crater, this volcanic dome is most likely a product of erosion, an ancient geo- logical artifact in the middle of featureless Maur Adrar desert in Africa’s Western Sahara. The earliest space missions used it as a landmark, adventurous 4×4 enthu- siasts consider it to be their playground, and scientists are still debating its origin. The meteorite-impact theory could not explain the flatness of the “crater’s” floor, so the most accepted explanation is the erosion of the initial volcanic dome, which gradually peeled away the layers of rock, creating the present onion-like form. Paleozoic quartzite of the resistant beds helped to outline the structure and to sculpt this alien landscape. To truly appreciate it, you’d have to look at the satellite photos, clearly showing an eroded circular anticline (structural dome) of layered sedimentary rocks.

 

You might think that this area is so remote and hostile that hardly anyone vis- its, but you would be quite wrong. Companies offer organized tours, especially of the off-road variety, and this barren landscape is a well-known challenge to 4×4 enthusiasts. Surprisingly, there is even a hotel smack in the middle of the Richat Structure. It’s nothing luxurious, but it offers adequate accommodations in the slightly “Mad Max” style.

 

The area around “the guelb” is interesting as well: F’Derik, one of the biggest iron mines in the world is located about 160 kilometers southeast. The iron ore produced there is exported all the way to the Atlantic port of Nouadhibou, via a 674-kilometer railway, which is the longest non-stop railroad in the world (no passengers allowed). The train from Nouadhibou to Choum is officially the lon- gest train in the world with a chain of cars that can stretch up to three kilometers in length.

 

 

 

 

The Bolivian Salt Lake, Salar de Uyuni, is one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. A magnificent area with an impressive Salt Desert (the world’s largest), active volcanoes, tall cacti islands and geyser flats, it exists like an alien mirage of something completely out-of- this-world.

 

The lake covers 10,580 square kilometers and consists of enormous flat salt beds, a 10 meter-thick crust of sodium chloride. It was formed due to the almost-instant evaporation of ground water when exposed to the dryness of the desert air. The region’s average annual temperature ranges from 20° Celsius in the daytime to -25° Celsius at night; the climate is dry and cold, with low rainfall and intense solar radiation.

 

One travelogue notes: “We finally reached the salt flats. Imagine being surrounded by endless white salt covered by a few inches of water. Without any reference points the sky meets the salt and creates an odd illusion that objects in the flats are flying. I had never seen anything like it. The truck drove through the salt flats and stopped at an island full of cacti. We had lunch on a table made of a large salt tablet and eventually stopped at a hotel made completely of salt.”

 

The amount of salt in Salar de Uyuni is estimated at 64 billion tons. The salts are gathered into cones and arranged into endless rows on the surface of the mirror-like lake.

 

There are bizarre islands with giant cacti, a geyser’s valley, “stone tree” formations (looking like something out of a Salvador Dali painting), and even a “haunted” train cemetery: steam locomotives, rusting away in Dali’s desert of time. At one time there were plans to develop the area near the city of Uyuni (3,660 ft. above the sea level) into a great railroad hub and terminal station. Construction started in the late 19th century but was never completed. Today, the empty husks of steam locomotives are rusting away under the watchful sun, like some kind of discarded metal carapaces, as the flattest plain on Earth recedes into the vastness of space and time.

 

The Dry Valleys of Antarctica located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound get almost no snowfall, and except for a few steep rocks, they are the only continental part of Antarctica devoid of ice. The terrain looks like something not of this Earth; the valley floor contains a perennially frozen lake with ice several meters thick. In the extremely salty water under the ice live mysteri- ous simple organisms, a subject of on-going scientific research.

 

Victoria Valley, Wright Valley and Taylor Valley pres- ent a stark but beautiful terrain, in some places weirdly similar to the Martian landscape. Occasional dried skeletons of seals and bizarre-shaped rocks add to the “Mountains of Madness” feeling. Powerful “katabatic” winds erode the rocks on the bottom of the valley into marvelous shapes. Such wind-sculpted rocks are called “ventifacts.” It seems that the Dry Valleys of Antarc- tica, with their dry cold climate and forbidding terrain, would be an ideal place to practice a manned Mars mission (or to lose a few Mars Rover prototypes). The scientists who work there must question their sense ofreality from time to time and can’t help but be haunted by the sights and sounds of this epic landscape.

 

Earth is a planet worthy of exploration for those with an interest in the unusual and the weird. There are other places that can be described as deliriously strange and somewhat alien in nature: Hawaiian volcanoes (the most active on Earth), the mysterious Plain of Jars in Laos, and Yellowstone Park. And very little of the bi- zarre environment that exists in the deepest part of the ocean has been explored. Robert Gagosian, president of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, says, “Less than 5 percent of the sea floor has been mapped. I believe that the human race is about to embark on a fantastic odyssey, not necessarily beyond Earth, but deep within it.”

 

Copyright © 2007-2008, Avi Abrams, Dark Roasted Blend, IAN Media Reprinted with permission. Originally appeared on Dark Roast Blend in 2007-2008. See more of Avi’s work at www.darkroastedblend.com

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