AT A GLANCE
Why go?
In the empty desert of Al Mahra, far eastern Yemen, the ground simply gives way. The Well of Barhout — a near-perfectly circular sinkhole about 30 metres across and 112 metres deep — opens like a dark, plugged mouth in the sand, and for generations locals have called it the "Well of Hell." It is one of the country's strangest natural wonders: a remote karst hole so deep that sunlight barely reaches the bottom, ringed by folklore about imprisoned jinn and the bad luck that follows even speaking of it.↗↗↗
What draws geographers and explorers is the contradiction between its ominous reputation and its ordinary, beautiful reality. When a team of Omani cavers finally descended to the floor in 2021, they found no demons and no gateway to the underworld — instead they found fresh water, hidden waterfalls, glittering cave pearls, stalagmites and a colony of snakes thriving in the gloom. It is a site of raw natural drama wrapped in genuine local legend, and a reminder of how much of the Arabian interior remains barely explored.↗↗
