Christmas Tales

Bir Ali, Yemen

Different places, different times, different Christmases. This week's Camino a Ítaca goes back to the beaches along the coast of Yemen in search of the Three Wisest of Men. Click over to the original piece in Spanish or read the English version below. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

Fingers of white sand scratched up the black, volcanic mountains flanking the half-moon bay. The sharp contrast gave the impression of an inverted black and white photograph of snow-capped mountains. Dun desert scrub extended beyond the lifeless bastions of rock and framed the image, making it seem even more like an old print from time gone by. Down below on the beach, a pair of unaccompanied camels plodded along the shore as the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Aden rolled out towards Somalia and the horn of Africa 300kms away across the strait.  

It was Christmas Eve and we were camping outside the tiny fishing village of Bir Ali on the near virgin coast of Yemen in hopes that the wild dolphins that frequent the bay would make an appearance while we were snorkeling.  

It was a reverse pilgrimage of sorts, the inverse of the scene that you see in so many homes at this time of year. This is because, according to local lore, one of history’s great enigmas began here. Those one-hit-wonder pop stars of classical antiquity that get only a brief, obscure mention in one of the gospels, yet whose image can be seen trotting towards miniature mangers all over the world. It was from this corner of Arabia Felix, that one of the Three Wise Men began his journey.  

It’s a claim that becomes all the more plausible if you consider the fact that this is one of the few places in the world that produces two of their three gifts, frankincense and myrrh. Rather than coming to us though, we had come to them. With what, I wasn’t so sure. 

In between swims I decided to climb up the craggy stones and see for myself just what was left of this biblical port that used to serve three different continents. Just a few years before, amphorae dating back to the first century that had sunk with one of the trade ships that ran from here to Africa, India and beyond had been found out on the reef. The draw of the story kept me going. 

Archaeology though, even on such an amateur level, is never easy and even more difficult in a country so beset with inner conflict, war and strife. Unless we found some more amphorae, goods like wine were impossible to find and the few cans of warm Heineken that we had managed to find on the black market looked like they had fallen off of the back of a truck, both literally and metaphorically. Bir Ali’s days as a major centre of trade between continents were long behind it. 

I finally reached the top and found nothing. Unless it was buried away under the sand, any real trace of what once was had disappeared. Their trail, and story, ended here. 

Years later I would find myself once again face to face with the kings, or at least their remains, this time in Cologne, Germany. Though their tale began in Yemen, it wasn’t until much later that they were ‘rediscovered’ in Europe in the fourteenth century and then go on to become central to so many Christmas carols, mantels and children’s wish lists. 

It was then, amidst the heaving Christmas crowds jostling to get a glimpse of the ornate golden coffer of bones, that the epiphany came to me. It’s not the facts that necessarily matter. It’s not necessarily even what actually happened. It’s the story and the power they have to keep us dreaming and rolling on.