‘All I Could See Were 50 Or So Men’: Woman Travels To Every Country In The World. For The First Time, She Fears For Her Life. Then She Realizes What’s Really Going On

Many of us dream of international travel, wistfully hoping to collect a passport full of stamps that serve as mementoes of time spent exploring unfamiliar lands. Precious few get to experience as much travel as they would like. One woman has achieved the rare dream of traveling to every country in the world.

TikToker Lexie Alford (@lexie.limitless), who holds two Guinness World Records for being the youngest person and youngest woman to travel to every sovereign country in the world, recently described the one time in all her travels that she felt unsafe. It happened in Yemen, which has been in the midst of a civil war since 2014.

What happened in Yemen sincerely terrified Alford, who spent hours fearing for her life. But she later realized that she was missing the cultural context that put the ordeal in an entirely new light.

Her TikTok describing the experience has 1.3 million views as of this writing.

Alford didn’t respond to inquiries sent via her website’s contact form and TikTok direct message.

What Happened in Yemen?

Alford traveled to Yemen as a photographer for a Norwegian author’s book about the “least visited countries in the world.”

She says she learned about the people and the culture. Alford also witnessed destruction from the civil war, which has taken the lives of an estimated 377,000 people. 

At around 3:00 a.m during her trip, though, Alford woke to the sounds of gunshots outside her hotel. She rushed to the window of the hotel. That’s when she saw something that terrified her. 

“ And all I could see was 50 or so men that were congregating in the parking lot of my hotel… There were all these cars blocking the only exit to the hotel with their flashing hazards on,” Alford said. “I could see that the security that’s usually there wasn’t sitting in their post.”

She said that the men were aggressively yelling and pushing each other. “That was the first time I heard a fully automatic weapon discharged. I literally ducked,” she recalled.

Her first instinct was to hide. As she contemplated where best to hide, heart pounding and trembling in fear, Alford heard another sound that only intensified her terror: footsteps and voices in the hallway outside her room.

“I knew for a fact that there was no one else staying in the hotel,” she said.

She then tried calling her guide, but he didn’t answer. So she stayed put, crying and wondering if each moment would be her last. “This went on for hours,” she said.

Eventually the adrenaline wore off and she fell asleep. 

The next morning, her guide picked her up as usual. When she told him what happened, he wasn’t the least bit surprised nor concerned. It turned out that the gunshots, the shoving, and the excitement was all part of a wedding celebration.

“ So cultural context here, because Yemen is an Islamic country, they do not have any alcohol. So one of the main ways that they were celebrating this wedding celebration was by firing their guns,” Alford said.

This put everything into a totally different context.

“The most terrified I had ever been was when I didn’t truly understand the culture,” Alford said.

Is Shooting Guns A Common Way To Celebrate Weddings?

Some people who commented on Alford’s post weren’t convinced that it was, in fact, a wedding party. But others said that similar celebrations occur in their home countries.

“This happens in a lot of countries. It also happens in my country Bosnia. It’s normal for us,” one wrote. 

Gunfire has become a common feature of some wedding celebrations in Yemen. It can be just as unnerving for Yemeni as visitors, though, with some locals saying they can’t tell if the gunshots are from a battle or a party.

At least one person verified Alford’s tale, writing, “I’m Yemeni and the moment she started describing the situation I knew it was a wedding.”

@lexie.limitless

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