Tower of Peace

Trying to organize my generally messy life, I was working my way through some old boxes and came across this flyer from the hotel where I stayed in Sana,a, Yemen.  I suspect I initially came across the Burj al Salam Hotel through a Lonely Planet guide, which is my traditional go to series.  This was over five years ago, a more peaceful time (at least by Yemeni standards), but even then the common wisdom was that you stayed inside the old city center (and, remember, this is Yemen, so we're talking ancient), so I chose this family run hotel in the center of town as compared to the hulking modern monstrosity encamped above the city.  It was a great, although decidedly short, stay, despite my documented struggle with the door.  The horror inflicted upon Yemen by Saudi Arabia and ISIS and AQAP and, yes, the US, over the last couple years made the discovery of the flyer all the more poignant.  Immediately I visited their website, which was still up but didn't seem to be working, and another more general travel site, and attempted to reserve rooms.  The message I received was that there were no rooms available, no matter what days I chose. The best news I received was a running message on the hotel website that read "Testing news coming soon."  It would be sad if the grand old building were destroyed, but the word tragedy is better reserved for the death and destruction of the people of Yemen.

The term Burj al Salam could be translated as Tower of Peace, which seems painfully ironic at this point in time.