MY ITINERARY
D1. FROM DJIBOUTI TO HARGEISA
I’m able to travel from Djibouti to Hargeisa without an escort. To avoid the heat, all the 4×4 that make the journey from the border to Hargeisa leave at 19h from the small border village of Loyaada.
From Djibouti city, I find a truck avenue 26 that leaves me at the border of Djibouti (see Djibouti’s article for more details), and from there, I pass the Djiboutian immigration control, walk the 500m that separates the two posts border and arrive in Somaliland. I recognize the flag flying proudly.
The border post is very small. The immigration officer, who does not speak a word of English, examines my passport and especially my visa issued in London. I have doubts now about its authenticity. I’m a little nervous but remain calm and confident. He asks me for the receipt of payment of the visa. Fortunately, I kept it with my important documents. He looks, hesitates but stamps my passport. Phew. At the exit of the small office, another guy asks for my passport to annotate my entry in a register. He speaks English well: “Welcome to Somaliland”!!! Behind the office, the sunset is beautiful, Somaliland: a new country for me (the 103rd)!
Right at the exit of the border post, there’s a small village, quiet at this time. Some of the many shops and restaurants are still open. I recognize the driver who will drive me to Hargeisa with the rest of the passengers, we were already together in the truck from Djibouti to the border. I hope he has rested well, it is at least 12 hours of night driving!
I’m waiting there with other passengers until we leave. I change money. Women are sitting in the middle of the road near the vehicles. The exchange rate is good here, 1usd = 10000 Somaliland shillings. For my short stay, I only change 50usd for meals, transport, small purchases and the hotel that can be paid also in usd.
We leave on time, 19h05! The trip is done at night to avoid the heat even if early November, the temperature is nice. In a big 4×4, 2 passengers behind, with me 3, and a man in front. On the last row of seats, boxes are piled up, the same as on the roof! If the trip is by 4×4 and not by bus, the road must be very bad…
I understand quickly. In fact, it is not a road but a track, in the middle of the desert. I feel like I’m in Paris-Dakar!!! If I thought it was going to be hard to sleep by the lack of comfort, especially for the space for the legs (and mine are small…), with the twitching of the vehicle, it is definitely unthinkable!
From the border, within a few kilometers, we pass several checkpoints: just a rope to stop vehicles in the middle of the track and an armed soldier who don’t even look inside the car.
I doze a little and the rest of the time, I look at the landscape, lit by the half moon: desert everywhere with few shrubs and acacias. The track is really terrible. We are stucked in the sand several times, but the driver is used to it and in nothing we are already on the road again.
We cross small villages along the way: a few huts and a mosque. Some goats or dromedaries sometimes walk in the middle of the houses or in the courtyards.
Then at dawn but still in the middle of the desert, we see the first houses with an aluminum roof of Hargeisa. The track becomes a paved road only in the main streets of the capital.
We arrive at 7 am, 12h journey. It’s really good timing, considering the very bad shape and quantity of sand of the 500km track!!! I thank the driver!
The 4×4 leaves us north of the city center, a taxi costs me 3 USD or 30000 Sl.Sh to reach the hotel Oriental, where I will stay 2 nights. The hotel is aptly named, the decoration, rather from the 60s is a bit like China or Japan. It mainly receives local businessmen or expatriate Somali returned for a stay in the country. I even find a Somali-Swiss who speaks French fluently! He is there for a few days for business and visiting his family who lives in a remote village.
I take the time to rest after the sleepless night.
