The Galapagos of Arabia sits washed over by the swells of the Aden Gulf, some 150 miles east of the Horn of Africa and even further south from its sovereign owner, Yemen. But isolation and difference are in Socotra’s blood, and the whole craggy, dusty, cave-crossed island now bears a coveted UNESCO heritage tag for its formidable diversity of endemic plant and animal life, many species of which are to be found nowhere else on the globe!

Yes sir, from the chiselled and chipped peaks of the Hajhir Mountains to the rolling plateaus of mind-boggling dragon blood trees (an iconic, umbrella-topped native species that seeps an alien red sap), this is a land of otherworldly proportions, where Mehri tribespeople inhabit the dusty hinterland and bulbous desert rose and cucumber trees dot the desert valleys.

So, why not enlist a Socotra Island tour guide to help make sense of this weird and wonderful archipelago and reveal its hidden secrets—from the subterranean caverns of Halah to the shimmering beaches and windswept cliffs of Qlinsia in the west?