Across the plateau, they said, there were so many trees that you could walk from the shade of one to the shade of another without the sun ever touching you. When Keabanni was a child, his great-grandparents told stories of vast forests of dragon’s blood trees. “The dragon’s blood tree is the heart of Socotra,” he tells me in the Socotri language, as Salem translates. Keabanni, who is in his mid-50s, is talking about the remarkable dragon’s blood tree that grows on the island’s mountains and high plateaux and nowhere else on Earth. Both wear sandals, T-shirts and traditional skirt-like attire called foutas, and sit cross-legged eating a breakfast of tea, dates and a pancake-like bread called malawah smeared with soft white cheese and honey. He is joined by his eldest son, Salem Mohammed Salem Abdullah, a tour guide and conservationist. The campsite owner, Mohammed Salem Abdullah Masoud, known as Keabanni, sits in a clearing on a foam mattress. By 6am the village is buzzing with activity.
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