4. It’s the desert but when it rains, it floods
I was very confused when it started to pour like crazy and the ground became absolutely drenched and flooded. I thought Somaliland would be similar to Djibouti: desertic and dry. But Somaliland is a bit greener and it does get a lot of rain, even if the soil is not particularly fertile.
And since it is so dry and the earth becomes cracked under the blaring sun, the rain soon becomes a flash flood turning otherwise empty wadis into gushing rivers in no time. While this is fascinating to see, it is also very dangerous and it does cut main roads like the one from Hargeisa to Berbera which crosses a wadi at around halfway. A wadi is a valley, ravine, or channel that is dry except in the rainy season.
We were stuck there for four hours while waiting for the water level to come down. The locals seemed to be enjoying the entertainment it provided and some of the cars are ready for such unexpected flooding, but others were not so lucky. An ambulance which, I suspect was trying to attend to an emergency, had to be rescued by a lorry when the waters tipped it over. Continue to next page
