POST30 SOLO14 - FIRELAND (DJIBOUTI): Days 239-241 of 273, 8-10JUL16, 1,935km to total 43,927km, Nairobi KENYA (Country 24) to Ali Sabieh DJIBOUTI (Country 27)

8 PLACES VISITED: DJIBOUTI: 1) Djibouti City, 2) Adaileh Canyon, 3) Lac Assal, 4) Dhikil, 5) Lac Abbe, 6) As Eyla, Dhikil, 7)  Ali Sabieh, 8) Gellile (Border).

3 OVERNIGHTS: DJIBOUTI: 1) Room at “Auberge Le Heron”, Djibouti City, 2) Foldout Bed in “Lac Abbe Camp” Lac Abbe (Elev 276m), 3) Room at the “Hotel-Restaurant La Palmaraie”, Ali Sabieh (Elev 706m).

1 RUN: DJIBOUTI: Djibouti City.

8 UNIQUE WILDLIFE: DJIBOUTI: 1) Camel, 2) African Jacana, 3) Thompson’s Gazelle, 4) Warthog, 5) Great Cormorant, 6) White Stalk, 7) Sacred Ibis, 8) Pink Flamingo.

BLOG POST TRAILER:

There is ICELAND and then there is FIRELAND! Why? DJIBOUTI (Pop 1m+) is a small desolate desert-ridden country of volcanic lava landscape that this is the INVERSE of the island nation of ICELAND, half-way between London and New York! Both are volcanic. Both have landscapes that look the moon BUT… one is cold and the other is hot. Ice and Fire. Iceland and Fireland. DJIBOUTI was the main mission of Solo 14 followed by Harar and the Lower Omo Valley in ETHIOPIA which is the subject of Post 31. I flew to Djibouti City (Pop 600,000+), the capital of DJIBOUTI with Riza and Tim from Nairobi in KENYA. We travelled to Nairobi from Nakuru in van which took 3.5hrs and was quite comfortable.

Nairobi was its usual chaotic self with people and vehicles everywhere. Riza did not like the Parama but for one night it was bearable. The flight to Djibouti City from Nairobi took 2.5hrs with the Kenya Airways, Brazilian-built Embraer 190. From the air we could see nothing but brown desert, much like the Arabian peninsula. The temperature and weather is the same - very hot and dry like Dubai or Abhu Dabi. The Arab influence is also very obvious both in the look of people as well as the architecture and dress. The country is predominantly Muslim and feels more like MOROCCO than East Africa. Political stability is up and down given problems with Somali and Eritrean refugees and internal jostling for the presidency between the two main ethnic groups.

We got to our hotel in Djibouti City around 6:30pm due to delays in our flight. Riza and went into town and enjoyed local dishes cooked up on a rooftop restaurant full of local families. Shredded beef or chicken with finely chopped tomato, onion and fresh pita bread. I remember stopping by an ATM that I considered the fastest I had ever encountered, not only in Africa but the world. After entering the PIN it was only 2 keystrokes to get cash and receipt. I remember that making a good first impression of the place. That quickly changed when I woke up the next morning for my 82nd country run. Lots of dust, garbage and old unkept units. We were in suburbia but close to the centre. My run was also a come-back run from my last calf sprain in Murchison Falls UGANDA only 5 days ago. I was nervous but made it even though I felt pain from the 3km mark it was not enough to stop me or cause more damage. I was very happy and joined RIza and Tim to find a tour company to show us the city and take us the two lakes that we had read so much about. By 9am we had found someone and sealed the deal. We spent the morning of our first full day driving to all the major sites of Djibouti City: Catholic and Orthodox Cathedrals, Peoples Convention Centre, Central Square, City Hall, Oldest Building, Old Grand Mosque, Presidential Palace. The city is very compact and feels more like a town. Traffic is bad and there are many small shop fronts rather than stalls.

As we left the city we noticed how abruptly it ends and the desert starts almost like a line in the sand. Our drive to “Lac Assal” took the better part of 4.5hrs and we stopped along the way to see the Adaileh Canyon, a mini Grand Canyon. It was 41C in the shade and we could only bare to be outside for 5min. The scenery was bleak. Hills of gravel, no trees. Completely desolate. Lac Assar emerged like a freaky painting in this harsh environment. It is stark white due to the high salt content with only an inch of water. The lake’s surface is 150 meres BELOW sea level making it the lowest point in Africa!!! I couldn’t believe that my feet touched the lowest and highest ground in this massive content! We spent 45min here hoping in and out of our 4WD given the now 43C heat outside. Even our cameras felt hot to touch and looked like they were bout to cark it! The drive from Lac Assar to Lac Abbe is another 4hrs and also very desolate. We passed through three desert villages along a very wide flat plain with light brown dirt and salt bush.

People out here tend goats and sell them to buy fruit and veggies and other foodstuffs. There is nowhere to grow crops. The towns have water below the ground. Abut 2hrs out of Lac Abbe yu leave this plain and enter a landscape that looks like the moon! Barren grey-brown hills with absolutely no plant life. Just rock and lava fields. This is where I draw the parallel to ICELAND. Lac Abbe is not famous for its water (now receding) but for its strange columns or “chimneys” of limestone that emit hot water steam at their tops. The chimneys are in fact formed from fissures in the ground heated by molten magma deep in the earth. The fissures melt limestone just below the surface which forms columns of limestone just like candy wax.

There are hundreds if not thousands of these chimneys of many shapes and sizes which have been eroded over centuries. It is a  strange but striking landscape and my favourite of the trip to date. The chimneys are best photographed at sunset and sunrise creating many hews of red and brown since during the middle of the day they look a drab grey. Combine these with the vast plain they sit on with the milky blue lake in the distance lined with Pink Flamingos and green algae and you have a very scenic and strange landscape.

We slept on fold-out beds in the open air under the stars just outside a village made of rocks. The altitude of 1700m combined with he desert conditions produces a very comfortable 25C at night - no need for blankets unless there is wind and there are no mozzies. We enjoyed my wine, cheese and olives on plastic tables in the open air before dinner. Our driver/guide and some of the locals enjoyed it very much. It does not matter how remote or desolate, the Culture Club manages to produce a civilised touch. We ate a delicious grilled chicken and veggie dinner prepared by the locals and talked extensively about what we had seen and the people we had met along the way. The following day and our third day in DJIBOUTI saw us driving back the same way to the town of Ali Sabieh near the border with ETHIOPIA.

I decided to stay there overnight and make my own way by car and two buses to Harar in ETHIOPIA the next day. Tim and Riza decided to drive back to Djibouti City with our driver/guide and fly to Addis Ababa the next day. I was keen to see what East Ethiopia looked like from the ground. It was sad leaving my company of 3 days but I looked forward to the grit of a lonesome border crossing. That afternoon and night in Ali Sabieh, I witnessed my first African dust storm and thunder storm, I could not see a thing from he dust - it was like thick fog and everyone ran indoors to avoid sand in the eyes. The thunder and lightening lit up the whole town and the water dumped down. I was lucky that the hotel served an excellent dinner which I had in my huge room and enjoyed a movie thought the sheets of rain. Tomorrow was ETHIOPIA day and I was in for journey that I would do as I went. No timetable, no booking, no tickets. Just follow the crowd. I was both anxious and excited.

BLOG POST DETAIL:

DAY 239 of 273, Fri 8JUL16, 1,716km (Flight 1,687km), Solo 14, Room at the “Parama Hotel”, Nairobi (Elev 1666m) KENYA to Room at “Auberge Le Heron”, Djibouti City DJIBOUTI. Today was DJIBOUTI DAY but not before another physio treatment to ensure that I could get in my 82nd country run there. The new analogue alarm woke me at 6:22am. My watch was next at 6:30am but I could hardly hear it. Pity I could not find a digital clock for accuracy but as long as I was 5min off that would be OK - the analogue was just loud enough. I caught a Boda Boda to the physio. He had a step up from for my kitchen bag and i wedged my electronics between myself and the driver.

Good thing I caught the motor bike - it is a traffic buster! We weaved in and out of traffic and claimed the curb. I was there by 7:45am for my 8am appointment. Alfred was pleased to see me. Like an old mate. He gave me one hell of a workout! I had no pain last night but after this treatment I was sore again but this was normal after a very deep massage designed to even out the scar tissue that was very deep. He agreed I was ready for a run tomorrow obut had to rest 4 days before the next one. That would be OK - I planned to do the next run in Djibouti City for DJIBOUTI followed by Omo Valley or Addis Ababa for ETHIOPIA. I felt confident because I had been here before. While he was treating me we talked about the where I had been and the differences between KENYA, UGANDA and RWANDA.

He had heard how strict the rule of law is in RWANDA and how clean and orderly things run there - he explained to me that the new President has a military background and does not tolerate any dissent - he has no problem throwing people in jail and asking questions later. By contrast, UGANDA is probably the next in strictness followed by KENYA which is considered “loose” and “too free”. He thought they could use more fines and more austere sentences to clean things up. Alfred also commented on how lucky I was to have just missed the two-day visit of Netanyahu, Prime Minster of Israel who was in the country to build relations with KENYA. The PM stayed at the same hotel as Abama and the security just as tight. The whole city was in lick down on his visits.

Alfred did not work during this time to avoid the grid lock. After 60min of treatment I showed him his picture in my Post 28 blog. He laughed hard. I farewelled this gentle man with a good conversational style and walked 5min to the Java Cafe where Riza was. Tim would meet us at the airport. After a coffee and croissant we were off at 10:30am to find the cheap airport bus. We hit that after a very short walk and were off at around 11am. Traffic was there but moving well. We hit that checkpoint again that looked like toll booths which took time. We got to the airport at noon and headed to the Kenya Airways desk in Terminal 1A to check into Flight KQ408 to Djibouti City departing at 1450 and arriving 1725. This time I put plastic wrap around my kitchen to check it in. It was worth paying USD7 to save 5 litres of wine! Riza laughed. We went through immigration and to the cafes and restaurants and duty free shops upstairs. Nairobi International was small and very basic. It is amazing to think that Netanyahu and Obama had both landed here recently. 

Riza and I bought 1hr worth of airport WIFI for AUD2.50 and settled down to research DJIBOUTI and our Omo Valley Package in KENYA. It was a good WIFI and Riza managed to find a very good 5-day, 4-night package visiting 7 tribes in the Omo Valley - all inclusive with private car and guide and food for USD735 each. I also got time and speed to pay many bills and talk to mum in Australia and Nick Drinias in Greece.

The downside was that the flight was delayed since it was coming in from another country. It was 16:00 when we took off and 18:30 when we landed. The flight was very comfortable in the Brazilian-built Embraer 190 seating 92 people. It even had 20 business class seats. It was fairly new and had seat-back movies. We even got a hot lunch - beef, mash and veggies or fish, rice and veggies. The good news was the free South African wine. I watched a movie and consumed enough to take me back to Australia! This was actually my first international flight within Africa. The movie was very thought provoking and would be great dinner conversation with Tim and Riza. It was called “I Origins” and it bordered on the bizarre.

The story of a young brilliant scientist who is obsessed with human eyes since they are unique in every person, like fingerprints, but unlike fingerprints, are considered very complex and outside the evolutionary cycle. Many creationists use this as proof of a “divine engineer” and as evidence against creationism. I shall stop here just in case you wish to see the movie - which I recommend you do with a group of friends and then have dinner afterwards to debate the meaning of the film: creation vs evolution! Flying over DJIBOUTI was ;like flying over the Arab Peninsula or Central Asia. Bleak, barren, desolate.

No trace of green land or blue lake. Rocks and mountains everywhere with dried out river beds snaking their way between them. Djibouti City itself looked like an outpost with its many houses spread out like leg blocks over a vast area. The actual city itself is against The Gulf of Aden at the opening of the Red Sea. It is extremely strategic with the country of YEMEN and the entire Arab Peninsula just opposite. For this reason it is the only place in Africa where the Americans and Japanese have an airforce base each! We landed right on sunset and when we exited the aircraft via a set of stairs onto the tarmac we were shocked! It was blistering hot with humidity just like Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Bahrain airports. It caught us unaware.

We found a taxi and within 15min we were settling into our hotel. The drive to the hotel revealed a very old, dusty, flee-bitten city. Bad roads and lots of garbage. Very visibly Muslim with lots of Arabic and French influence. For USD45 each per night it was expensive compared to what we were used to in Africa. Djibouti City is desolate and many ex-pats work here so the local hotels take advantage since “the boss is paying”. Our bathroom was very basic but at least the room had an air conditioner that worked and a big screen Samsung LCD on the wall. Tim opted out of dinner but Riza and I were intent on experiencing the city at night and eating some local food. The hotel rang for a taxi since we were a bit out of the way and it took 30min to get to us. We are dropped off in the centre at the Mellileck Square. Immediately it did not look or feel like a big city centre.

It felt more like a large then despite its 1m+ population. The buildings were very old and a third were abandoned or falling apart. It was a short walk to the “Blue Nile” restaurant from Lonely Planet. We walked around inside and inspected the menu - there was no local food in sight - just pizzas, burgers and pasta. The West had hit hard! I remembered from Lonely Planet that there was another place next door serving Ethiopian food on the roof-top! There it was. The place was packed and served a blend of Ethiopian and Djiboutian food. The place was packed with local families. Some striking looking women and immaculately dressed. We sat down on a table in front of the cook. An Ethiopian, he was very animated and spoke English well.

He plained the dishes waiting there to be served and actually placed to dishes in front f us. No ordering no waiting. We tucked into our “Patiras” like we had;t eaten in days. They comprise shredded chicken or beef with shredded fish mixed in with diced tomato, onion and a shredded omelette chipata (thin pizza like base cooked on a flat circular hotplate). It was delicious but a bit take-away-ey. Not even the large fans could counter the heat of that open roof top so we decided to make a quick exit only after 30min and head to a bar for a cold beer. Most places were dance joints so we walked around for bit to digest and finally found a “sports bar”. It was just right and we gulped down two Heineken beers from the tap. Nice. AT least this place was air-conditioned. We retuned to the hotel at 10:30pm and stayed up to do more research on organised tours in DJIBOUTI given we had only 3 nights and 2 full days. Tonight was the day that I booked MY RETURN FLIGHT HOME VIA GREECE. I could not deliver that this day had come. I was off to Greece on 26 August and two weeks later to Sydney arriving 10 September 2016. I lay in bed nervous about tomorrow. Not because of the need to quickly organise a tour but because I was going to attempt aother come back run to record DJIBOUTI.

DAY 240 of 273, Sat 9JUL16, 160km, Solo 14, Room at “Auberge Le Heron”, Djibouti City (Run1) to Foldout Bed in “Lac Abbe Camp” Lac Abbe (Elev 276m) DJIBOUTI. Woke up before BOTH alarms. I was too anxious about the run. I got up just before 5:30am so I could be back to help research our tours and get an early start. My calf felt good. No pain. I strapped it with Kinesio tape and put on the compression sock. The day outside was very warm and humid. I drank plenty of water and put on my music since a long time - it would help take my  mind off my calf. Off I went doing the cautious one kilometre lap away and back to the hotel. The road was flat and continuous with no traffic or many people - it was suburbia and perfect for a come back run. Everything was good up until the 3km mark when I felt the stretch point on my calf. At the 5km mark it became slightly painful and felt like it was one more pain level away from a pop - if that came I would stop. Thank goodness.

It held to the end and I pushed up the Djiboutian sky - I had done it. Just. My 82r run country was secure and tonight I would celebrate big time. I had plenty of time to recover and get more treatment in Addis Ababa to do the same in ETHIOPIA. That is the way it was going to be for now. I would continue to stay away from carbs to keep my weight steady in the absence of consecutive runs. I showered and emerged ready to research in the hotel lobby. Riza and Tim were just starting. It was 7:30am. Coffee and croissant kept us going and Riza and I actually found a tour each with the guide due to visit us in 10min, My guy came first and offered us two alternatives. Riza’s came a little later with a better option. We took it.

We would visit both Lac Assal and Lac Abbe in the two days by overnighting in Lac Abbe and ending up in Ali Sabieh near the Ethiopian border instead of going back to Djibouti City. This would safe us time which we could use in Harar in ETHIOPIA. I thought it was expensive at USD290 each but it included all meals and the overnight in Lac Abbe. It was our only choice. Daniel, the tour company owner would send his driver Bourhan and guide Derege to pick us up at 9:30am - that was great work by us and in particular Riza given the time. The Landcrusier 4WD turned up at 10am complete with supplies.

We headed towards the city to do our tour stopping at the old train station first. Built in 1898 this was now abandoned due to a new station and track connecting Djibouti City with Addis Ababa due to open later this year. It was being built by the Chinese in exchange for import contracts via the newPort they also built. The good old Chinese had it sown up but the Djiboutians had no loans to contend with. Next stop was the Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedrals. I had seen the Catholic one lit up by different coloured lights last night. The Orthodox one was a much beer building and cobbled together from used materials. There was even a Greek Orthodox church just 100m away. Just before entering the city centre we stopped in front of the “People’s Place”, a huge museum-like building used for conferences, theatre, musical shows and cultural shows.

Riza and I immediately recognised Mellilek, the centre of town. We walked around taking photos of the many different shapes, colours and design of building, most of them in bad shape and influenced by French and Arabic cues. Our last stop was the wine shop and Old City Mosque. Not exactly compatible but both welcomed. The Mosque was small and has been superseded by a much larger one nearby. As we left the city at around 11:15am I could not help thinking how hard the poor and homeless must have it here given the heat and humidity on top of the hunger. Djibouti City is nothing to write home about. Sure, it has character, especially at night when it is easier to bare but there is nothing really stand-out about it.

I was OK leaving it. The drive out revealed nothing but bare rocky mountains with not a singe green thing in sight. Much like Iceland but with no colour and stinking hot. Our only stop before Lac Assal was the Adaileh Canyon. A very large and deep canyon of mostly basalt with rugged sharp edges and no plants. Near Lac temperature had already hit 40 and it was hard to be outside for very long. We got to Lac Assal 2.5hrs later. What a place. A huge shallow salt lake surrounded by bare rocky mountains. This lake is actually what is left of a huge volcano that sank and weathered over millions of years to the point where the surface of the lake is 150 metres BELOW sea-level making the lowest place in the content of Africa.

We all took off our shoes and walked into the lake. There is only an inch of water and it is very salty. The lake floor is ridged salt and massages the feet. The lake reminded me very much of the salt lake of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. We could only manage 20min outside where the temperature peaked at 43C. I was worried that our cameras would start to malfunction - they were very hot to touch. There was also a haze on the horizon due to the extreme heat and humidity. There were two local kids selling salt sculptures and bags of salt. Roberto would have loved the salt bags. The drive from Lac Assal to Lac Abbe took 4.5hrs and involves a back track from Assal of 1.5hrs followed by a very scenic run, especially where the bitumen runs out.

The last 2hrs is true four wheel driving across different terrains. The first is a very uneven gravel terrain dipping down and up repeatedly with small saltbush style scrub about. This was very slow. Then we entered a flat beige sandy plain emerged in between two a line of two very distant ridges. This was smooth and the fastest track. This is also where we saw green plants for the first time - scrubs and low trees and many acacias. If it wasn’t for the Acacias we could be anywhere in the Middle East or Central Asia. In this sandy fat we passed by two local villages belonging to the Afar peoples who occupy all the are between the two lakes we would visit. The first is As Eyla and the second is the larger Kouta Bouya. Hundreds of waving and yelling children came to greet us.

People sat under trees and in the shadows of buildings trying to find respite from the blazing heat. We then drove over very rocky terrain with pebble like stones with a vast flat area next door with a network of small canyons cut into it. It has a greenish colour to it due to moss growth on the stones. We headed closer and closer to the northern ridge and then cut into it. We had entered the moon. Dark basalt and pumice all around us. No road. No track. The 4WD just following the outline of the merging piles of rock. We were getting close. At about 5pm they emerged. A see of what looked like conical piles of rock, scraggy and all different shapes. Like candle wax piled high and frozen in time. On closer inspection they were actually limestone “chimneys” with hot steam emerging from the tops of some of them.

They are all assembled on a vast flat surface with white and yellow bands in it. Turns out that this vast flat surface was a huge lake (extension of the existing Lac Abbe) many thousand of years ago and a sudden rupture of the giant magma chamber underneath caused fissures to appear everywhere spurting up molten limestone immediately below the surface. This limestone eventually piled up around the fissures forming these so-called “chimneys”. There are hundreds if not thousands of them spread out over a few square kilometres. It is like nothing I have seen before so I cannot compare it to anything - this place will become of me a new reference to which I may compare the places that I see. The chimneys now took on a golden brown colour under the glow of the setting sun.

We were very pleased that we had made it in time for sunset since this is the best time to view them. I was not pleased that we did not get out to photograph them together with the setting sun - instead we drove to our camp site to view the sunset from here. Ba Bum. Wrong decision. I gave the guide some feedback and he promised to return to the middle of the chimneys at sunrise. Bingo. Good idea. Our camp was a replica of the stone houses and huts used by the Afar peoples. The larger stone houses had 4-6 foldout beds inside and the smaller round cloth huts had two. There was a block of 8 toilets but no showers and no running water. The camp was set on a hill with a good view of the chimneys in the distance but not close enough for good photos.

There was a local village behind the camp and a few of them were cooking for us. I assembled a table and chairs overlooking the chimneys and set up my wine, cheese and olives and commenced my blogging. The others soon joined me. From then on, a wind started to blow. It was not cool but it warm and at least it kept the mozzies off us. Dinner was great, Charcoal chicken with a sad of greens and plenty of spaghetti and rice. I stuck with the chicken and salad. We talked for a while after dinner and retired to our foldouts whilst the wind was still going. It must have been 33C so I pulled my foldout out of the hut and slept outside. No blanket. Just me and my nickers and the sound of the wind whistling past the rocks of the surrounding dwellings.

DAY 241 of 273, Sun 10JUL16, 59km, Solo 14, Foldout Bed in “Lac Abbe Camp” Lac Abbe (Elev 276m) to Room at the “Hotel-Restaurant La Palmaraie”, Ali Sabieh (Elev 706m) DJIBOUTI. What a fantastic night. Stars overhead, wind blowing, distant lightning strikes lighting up the night sky. This was the most surreal night of sleep in Africa to date. Not only was the idea of sleeping outside a novelty but to do so with a sea of strange limestone chimneys below you was magic. The glow of first light woke me and I looked down to see 5:25am. Sunrise was at 5:50am so I woke the others so that we could make it to the chimneys in time for sunrise. Presto. The glow of the rising sun and the eventual disk of the sun behind these strange strike made for excellent photos and film. We all spilt up on foot and walked into the sea of chimneys in different directions.

It was a great experience being alone with these structures all around you and the morning sky above you. We spent many minutes alone before the sound of Derege’s voice drew us back together. We then walked approx 2km to the waters of Lac Abbe. They were rough as the wind had picked up. The water looked pink. That’s because there were hundreds of Pink Flamingos eating algae at the water’s edge. We could not get too close because they flew away. Zoomed in to capture the buggers. Finally, we had seen them. Had to come to DJIBOUTI to do so. The walk was great. I was some distance behind the others as we all walked back and tried to replete highlights of what I had seen in this great continent of Africa.

I was overwhelmed by this strange place and all that we had experienced in the continent. Would I remember all of it without looking back at the blog? Would I come back? What would the grind of every day life back at home be like in comparison to this?

This trip was not a holiday but a way of life in its own right. It was a morning of reflection and I thought a lot about what it was going to be like seeing my family and friends again and settling into a working life. We drove back to camp and had a local breakfast of wheat/maize pan cakes, jam and local herbal tea and coffee. The pan cakes were like big flat doughnuts. The coffee was too weak so I had tea. It tasted very nice - like a cross between cinnamon and apple.

Our journey back started 8:45am and we back-tracked on the same road all the way to Dhikil. We made a stop in As Eyla and saw all the same terrains as yesterday. We hit Dhikil at noon and stopped for fuel and an Ethiopian short black coffee - strong but a bit dusty in flavour - this was a makeshift cafe for truckies.

Our plan now was to head to the Ethiopian border at Gellile to see if there were any buses going to Dira Dawa or maybe even Harar. If not we would try finding a private car. Failing both, Derege would drive us to Ali Sabieh just a few kilometres back where we would overnight and get on a bus first thing in the morning. This is what I was used to and loved it. Adventure. The Unknown.

As long as I had some influence over what happened I was OK with the element of the unknown - something that I am not renowned for. Africa had indeed changed me. The drive to the border took a little over an hour. We enquired about buses to Harar this arvo but they only run in the morning. We would overnight in Ali Sabieh in DJIBOUTI (5min drive from border), have someone drive us to the border, cross it, catch a 5hr bus to Dire Dawa in ETHIOPIA and then a one hour bus to Harar in ETHIOPIA, placing us there around 1pm - hopefully. After getting this vital information from the Djibouti immigration officer at the border we drove the short distance to Ali Sabieh and straight to the hotel to have lunch and ask the hotel manager if there was anyone in town with a passport that could drive us to Harar.

While we were waiting for the manager, Riza decided to pull out and drive back to Djibouti City with Derege so that she could fly to Addis Ababa the next day and relax - she was put off by the amount of driving. Tim however was interested in proceeding only if we had a driver to take us to Harar today at a reasonable cost. I blogged a bit while we waited for lunch and for the jury. No go. There was a driver but his car was on its way back from Djibouti City - we had to leave now. Tim was out and going back to Djibouti City with Riza. The hotel manager told Derege that he would organise someone to walk me to the bus n town that would take me to the border at 7am. The bus from the ETHIOPIA side would leave at 8am. I was OK with that and made the decision to stay as per original plan. Riza and Tim thought I would change my mind but I am a Golfin and I stick to the plan.

I farewelled the group and settled into my huge room. No water. It was coming later. Bugger that - I needed a shower to be able to blog. I used a bucket and cup. Nothing new - perfected the technique at my dad’s village in Greece! By 3:30pm I was in my blogging zone. Went strong until 7pm when the kitchen opened for dinner. Lunch was great here so dinner would be a repeat performance. Tender beef with green beans. I was having the same again! A knock at the door of my room at 8pm signalled dinner. Outside I heard the rumbling of thunder and the whistling of a wild wind. When I opened the door I almost got blown backwards. It was very cool and I knew from this, we were in for a big storm! About half way through dinner I heard the heavy rain, even through my ear plugs. It was wild. The first storm of my trip. Thank goodness I was here inside a room instead of a tent! I watched a great movie starring Robert De Niro called “The Siege” and wondered afterwards whether I would make it to Harar tomorrow and if so when I would arrive?

PS: A LITTLE ABOUT DJIBOUTI:

DJIBOUTI (Pop 1m+) is a tiny desolate country more reminiscent of countries in the Arabian peninsula than Africa. Although small it is in exactly the right place on the Gulf of Aden at the entry to the Red Sea - very strategic. For this reason the USA, France and Japan all have military bases here.

The USA has no other military bases in Africa except here. DJIBOUTI was first settled by the Aksum Kingdom of ETHIOPIA around the first century. It was joined by the Christian Aksum Empire in the 4th Century and so the rivalry between the two began. Eventually Aksum fell away and Christianity was replaced by the Muslim faith that originated with Arab traders settling here in AD825.

The French then made a deal with the Afar sultans of Obock and claimed the country in the 19th Century. They did this to keep an eye on the British who were based across the gulf in YEMEN. The French were able to start construction of the capital in 1888 and the railway between the capital and Addis Ababa.

After many internal conflicts, independence finally came in 1977. Since then the two key ethnic groups have constantly wrestled for power. Their conflicts were sidetracked by trouble with ERITREA who had plans of their own to possess the now free DJIBOUTI. A short war resulted in 1990 which resulted in DJIBOUTI inviting the Americans to help in return for a base in the country - the only US base in Africa!

DJIBOUTI also did a deal with CHINA to have them build infrastructure (Oil Port, Railway and Roads) in exchange for committed contacts to import Chinese products since the country has no manufacturing or agriculture. The two major ethnic groups in DJIBOUTI are the Issas (60%) and Afars (35%).

The rest are Arabs and Europeans. Thanks to the French, the food in DJIBOUTI is good with goat meat and rice being the most popular since all goats are local. Green beans and beef also abound but are expensive since everything is imported. DJIBOUTI is the size of Etosha National Park but with hardly any animals. 

PPS: INTERESTING FACT ON AFRICA: 

African wildlife accounts for almost one third of the whole world’s species having: 1,100 mammal, 2,400 bird, 2,000 fish. There are now approx 100,000 Gorillas and growing. Chimps are plentiful and share 99% of our genetic makeup. Cheetahs have now been recorded to run up to 115km near the point of kill. The Hippo is still the most dangerous animal (in terms of people actually killed) an the third heaviest land animal in the world. There is a type of antelope called the “Dik-Dik”!Nigerian muscians Fela Kuti and Victor Uwaifo created their own genres of African music that achieved domestic and international success. Fela invented “Afrobeat” and Victor “Ekasa, Sakassa and Tittifrutti”.