Socotra's south coast feels like the far side of a very strange moon. Here the island drops from the granite spine of the Haggier mountains onto a broad gravel plain that runs down to a hot, wind-scoured shore, with dunes piled against the cliffs and nothing taller than a goat for miles.
The island has been cut off from mainland Africa and Arabia for millions of years, and it shows. A third of its plants grow nowhere else: the dragon's blood tree with its umbrella of stiff branches, the swollen desert rose that looks like a bottle stuck in rock, frankincense and myrrh clinging to bare limestone. UNESCO listed the archipelago in 2008 for exactly this. On the southern side you also get the island's great sand drifts, pale and smooth against dark mountains, which turn honey coloured in the hour before sunset.
Be honest with yourself about logistics. Socotra belongs to Yemen, a country at war, and most governments advise against travel; the few visitors who come arrive on limited flights and almost always travel with a local guide and driver. Very few riders bring their own machine, and the realistic way to see the south is from the seat of a hired four-wheel drive or a borrowed local motorbike. The road from Hadibu crosses the mountains and is paved in places, rough in others, and the summer monsoon from roughly June to September brings gales strong enough to stop traffic and halt flights.
Fill every tank and can in Hadibu and treat water the same way, carrying more than you think. Food is whatever your guide arranges, usually rice, fresh fish grilled on the beach and goat, with sweet tea brewed over a driftwood fire. Camping under that southern sky, with no lights between you and Somalia, is one of the quiet, rare privileges of travel.