Flowers of the Silk Road: AMAZING SOCOTRA

The first draft of the photo spreads for the book will be completed this week so to keep things ticking over on the blog we want to change the sample selection every few days so keep en eye on the COMING SOON post.

This time last year Chris was in Socotra a stunning and remote island in the Indian Ocean administered by the Yemen. The endemic flora there was quite something with amazing dragon tree forests, wonderful succulents of which many of grew to tree-size and ancient frankincense trees set among pristine and wild landscapes. There are few roads and no dogs, only thousands of goats the mainstay of the local people, but a menace for many plants, so at times you have to search for many species among crevices in the limestone or on inaccessible outcrops. Nonetheless it still is a largely unspoilt place and worth every effort to get to.

Sadly the current political climate meant our trip to Socotra this February was cancelled. We were both going to this amazing island, but hopefully next year it will be ok to visit again and stand on spotless white sand beaches that stretch for miles alongside an intensely azure sea with no sign of a beach umbrella or jet-ski.

So for this year our tour season will now start in March when, Chris will be off to Andalucia in Spain where there will be a fine show of Narcissus, Iris planifolia and early bee orchids as well as some great birding followed by various trips around Turkey. Başak will be taking people around the western Taurus looking for spring bulbs after that, lots of snowdrops, crocuses and sweet-scented Muscari muscarimi. We’ll be posting our favourite shots from these tours each time we return. For now here are a few from Socotra;