Welcome

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SOCOTRA

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Socotra is the main island in an archipelago called Socotra, which lies in the Gulf of Aden some 250 miles off the coast of Yemen, its parent country. Roughly 1,3000 miles square, or about the size of New York’s Long Island, Socotra is a geographical collage of ancient granite massifs, limestone cliffs, and red sandstone canyons, all surrounded by a turquoise sea. Its people, mainly Bedouin nomads and fisherman, are generous and proud and speak a language, Socotri, distinct from mainland Arabic. Above all, Socotra is an ecological gem. With nearly 700 endemic species identified in recent years, the archipelago has been described as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

In January 2007, I had the pleasure of visiting Socotra on assignment for The New York Times T Style Magazine:Travel. I’ve posted a few photographs from my trip on the following pages. To read the full article, click on the link above or visit the T:Travel site. For more about me, visit my main website, www.aburdick.com.

I encourage you to learn more about this rare and remarkable place. Be sure to check out the official website of the Socotra Conservation and Development Program. My warm thanks to Dr. Abdul Kareem al-Eryani, Paul Scholte, and Ahmed Said of the SCDP for making my visit possible.

Alan Burdick is the author of “Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion,” which was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Awards. He writes for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, GQ, and Natural History, among other magazines.

A Visit to Socotra

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