Berbera

(NB: we are in Jinka, now, in South Ethiopia, and it is unlikely that I will be uploading much more, in the next few days, or even weeks. Internet is not what we think it is, here - forget about photos and the lot. So, enjoy this last installment for a while, until better times...)

There is really no pressing reason to go to Berbera, other than that there is nothing else to do in Somaliland (except visiting the Las Geel caves, on the way to Berbera). The country side on the 170 km drive from Hargeisa doesn’t change much, although by now there are less and less animals, only camels and goats, grazing in between the shrubs. We circumvent the occasional mountains, still with very little vegetation. And Berbera itself, well, the entry is perhaps even more depressing than the one into Hargeisa. And yet, yet… there is something magic about the town, in all its run-down, dusty form. The old town, with lots of old British colonial buildings, many apparently shot to pieces in the war with Somalia in 1988, at first seems mostly bolted up, a sort of a ghost town, but on closer inspection there are actually quite a lot of people living here, quite a lot of minimalist café terraces, and – I have no idea where they came from – quite a lot of school children who surrounded us within minutes of us getting out of the car. I suppose we are a rarity, here, not many tourists make it all the way to Berbera.

(1) the road to Berbera, supporting a slightly more mountainous area, but still bone dry

(2, 3, 4) old colonial buildings, some badly damaged from the Somaliland independence war in 1988-1991, although the downstairs gallery is still in tact; (5) goats have a free for all in the destroyed buildings

Berbera is on the coast, but somehow the coastal strip is empty; apparently, nobody wants to live near the water front, too hot, too humid. Yet, the main business is fishing, the town supports many fishing companies, and has a small fishing jetty – you cannot even call this a harbor – where some men are mending nets. It also has a few restaurants, where we have the first real fish of the trip. Of course, outside town is the real harbor, much bigger, and the international airport, with the – apparently – second largest airstrip of Africa. Built by the Americans in the time Somalia still mattered as a pawn in the Cold War.

(6) Berbera Boulevard, somehow nobody want to be at the seaside - or maybe this part of town was also damaged in the war, and never rebuilt.

(7, 8) there is a harbour, with some ships that will never move again, and for the rest rubbish, rubbish and birds that love the rubbish - the main port is further to the left, out of sight

(9, 10) fishing is the main industry here, and is being attractively advertised - as in Hargeisa, this gives some colour to the otherwise rather grim town

Our driver, who is from Berbera, doesn’t understand why we are so interested in the old town, and wants to show us the new town. So we oblige, only to realize that we cannot actually distinguish between the two. Same dirt roads, same dust, same run-down houses, only difference is that the buildings are single story, as opposed to – collapsed – two story buildings in the old town. After an hour or so we have seen all there is to see, and we resume the return trip, another three hours of desolate country side.

(11, 12) some of the doors and windows are still relatively well maintained - I am sure the lattice work is original

 (13, 14) despite the illusion of a ghost town, there are some people, school girls who love the attention of the photographer, and women selling I-don't-know-what, on a street corner

Las Geel

All this adventurous, hardship travel to Somaliland had one major objective: visiting the rock art galleries of Las Geel, some 50 km outside Hargeisa. I have seen many rock paintings, in India and in especially in Southern Africa (beats me why I never went to Lascaux in France, need to correct that one of these days), and I have always enjoyed it. Knowing that you can only see this here, in situ, you cannot transport them to any museum around the world; the magic and the mystery of the makers, long-dead shamans who painted this thousands of years ago, likely in some ritual to entice the gods to bless the hunt, or the harvest; the romance of the caves, of sitting there looking out over the plains below, like others must have done, too, that same thousands of years ago.

Getting to Las Geel involves hiring a car and a driver, and an armed escort – whether this is for protection, or to provide an additional financial stimulant to the economy, I don’t know. As customary in Somaliland, we first needed to fuel, then put some more pressure on the tires – you could not possibly have anticipated that ahead of the departure, of course. Driving is a bit of a challenge: despite having been British, they drive on the right… but somehow, most cars have their steering wheel on the right, as well! I haven’t worked out why, other than that cars with the wheel on the right seem to be cheaper (?).

(1, 2, 3) the country side along the road to Las Geel is possibly even dryer that what we have seen so far, supporting meagre huts only, and charcoal seems the only viable business from this land.

Our driver spent the first hour and a half mostly on his mobile telephone, except at the police check points, where he knew all the right people, and managed to get us through without once showing our special permit – another financial stimulant – or passport. Closer to the site, we turned onto a dirt track, which we followed for some 20 minutes, until we reach one more police check point. Surreal, this, absolutely in the middle of nowhere, a metal bar across a dirt road, and a police man who was not going to interrupt his conversation on his own mobile phone to let the one car he would see today through. So we waited five minutes – anyhow, our driver was also on the phone -, and then finally common sense was regained, permit inspected and one copy confiscated, and we could proceed. Another 10 minutes further we arrived at a small site building, where we woke up the care taker, who turned out also to be the guide. And who immediately got onto his mobile phone, too, and kept on talking well after we had reached the first few shelters. What is it with these people and mobile phones?

(4) this is, for sure, the only police check point that is being anounced in Somaliland, on a dirt track to the Las Geel cave paintings

The Las Geel site has been “discovered” in 2003, as a pristine site, unaffected by human destruction in the form of graffiti, and unaffected since, because, well, the site is in Somaliland. Like in Zimbabwe, the caves are in weathered granite hills, something we had noticed already on the way, a change in landscape allowing the occasional granite hill to stick out of the otherwise flat desert-like surface. There are over 20 shelters, of different size and depth, of which mostly the roofs have been painted, predominantly in red and white, with occasional brown-yellow, and, very rarely, black pigments used, too. The subject matter is cows, and humans, and cows, more cows, and some more humans, and a few dogs. I also found one giraffe, and one gazelle, but obviously, this was a site inhabited by pastoral people, not hunters – which suggests that it is probably not very old. Carbon datings suggest life in the cave took place almost 5000 years ago.

(5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) the main granite hill that contains the shelters with paintings, a few examples of the paintings - like a ceiling with multiple cows and humans in different colours, a wall with monochromatic cows, a giraffe, and a cow with two human figures under it -, and the view from the cave.

We explored the various caves for well over an hour. Wonderful experience, warmly recommended (if not in Somaliland, then somewhere else, perhaps more accessible, but go and see rock paintings one day, it is well worth it).

(11, 12) and an unexpected bonus, two dikdiks - a very small deer species - and a gazelle, somehow they manage to survive in this unforgiving landscape; our first real wildlife on this trip

Hargeisa (2)

However depressive Hargeisa may look upon entry – and in fact, however depressive Hargeisa may look, full stop -, much is being compensated by the people here. Granted, our immediate comparison is Ethiopia, and you know by now that we have not been wholeheartedly impressed by the Ethiopians in general, but even without this, Somalilanders must rank towards the top in the list of most friendly, genuine people.

We booked ourselves in the Oriental Hotel – not as flashy, perhaps, as its famous Bangkok namesake, but by all means a very comfortable place, with extremely nice and helpful staff. And it is not that they have tourists here every day. It already starts at the door, with an automatic contact that makes an electronic voice say “Salaam Aleikum” every time the door opens, and closes. Every time! A stroll through downtown Hargeisa has scores of people, men and women, coming out to greet us, ask us how we are, where we are from (many know Holland, have family in Holland), and then welcome us into Somaliland. Genuinely welcome us, want us to feel at ease. There is nothing like the opportunistic approaches that we constantly experienced in Ethiopia. Nobody asks for money.

On the contrary, when I find a local bus to go to the camel and goat market, outside town, one of the passengers pays for my fare, and no protestations from my side can change that. By the time we reach the market – 20 minutes later, that is what it took to progress the 2 kms, and not because of the traffic, but because every 50 meters somebody needs to get out or get in, and nobody is really in a hurry – by the time we reach the market, one of the passengers comes with me to make sure I find the place, 200 meters down a side street. The market ground is actually also the football pitch, but used in the mornings for trading camels and goats. Goal posts come in handy. It is not very busy, today, perhaps some 60-80 camels, with the name of their owner written on their hump, and a few hundred goats, in small groups. Sellers cramp under a parasol, awaiting potential buyers. Everything moves very slowly, nothing spectacular, but it is fun to absorb the atmosphere. And fun to talk to everybody who approaches me, once again out of curiosity, never with any opportunistic intention – or it must be that they want their picture taken, too.

In town, there is nothing really. Few of the streets are tarmac, some others are covered with irregular cobbles, most are just dirt roads, and in any case there is sand and dust everywhere. The things to see are the mosque, not very special, and the war monument, a Russian MIG fighter aircraft. Also not very special, really. But it doesn’t stink in town, no pee smell, no human excrements in street corners. No smell of rotting fruit in the humble market (which in any case is dominated by non-food items, shoes and cloths, and mattresses, especially). The relatively few cars and buses nevertheless manage to produce a chaos, not helped by the people pushing wheel barrows – the preferred way of transporting goods, and sometimes the elderly. But the best is the complete traffic jam after lunch, in the street where chat is being sold. Every self-respecting Somali climbs in his four-wheel drive (or 20 year old Toyota station wagon, or just walks) to get to chat-street and get his portion of fresh chat to get through the afternoon. In effect, this country only works half-days, in the morning. In the afternoon the nation resolves to chewing chat, a narcotic providing this pleasant stoned feeling that ensures that you don’t do anything anymore for the rest of the day.

Another feature of this town is the money people. Everywhere, on every corner, you’ll find a few, sometimes up to ten, money changers, with enormous stacks of bank notes in front of them, really, bales of 500 and 1000 shilling notes (8 and 16 $cents, respectively, the largest denomination notes in the country, I think). Some have flimsy metal cages in which they keep the money, many don’t and have the bales just in front of them, on the pavement. Nobody seems concerned about crooks trying to steal any of it. Come to think of it, this is indeed the first day of the trip that I haven’t had the feeling that I needed to watch over my shoulder all the time. The first day that I feel perfectly safe. Nice feeling!

because you are unlikely to ever have been in Hargeisa, and equally unlikely to get their any time soon, I have decided to post more than the usual amount of pictures - how else would you know how it looks like there? And because of internet connectivity limitations, I'll selected the Picassa webalbum route again, so check out https://picasaweb.google.com/bruno.oudmayer/HornOfAfricaHargeisa?authkey=Gv1sRgCPnn7JvwsuCtAQ
for the pictures related to this entry (about 20, or so)

Hargeisa

I mentioned would-be capital Hargeisa already: would-be capital of the Republic of Somaliland. Somaliland in one of the three parts that officially makes up Somalia, the others being Puntland, and the part that gets so often in the news, the southern part of Somalia (let me call this rump-Somalia). Puntland and rump-Somalia are both previous Italian colonies, Puntland is the pirate paradise, somehow semi-autonomous from the rump Somalia, thanks to its healthy and ever growing foreign exchange reserves, and rump-Somalia is now the prototype of a failed state (the past link with Italy is, of course, totally coincidental and the failed state part nothing to do with the colonial past; after all, the other Italian colony in the Horn, Eritrea, is an exemplary country, no?). Somaliland, however, is the former British colony. It was lumped with the rest of Somalia after the Brits left, but then declared its independence from increasingly dysfunctional Somalia in 1991, after a nasty war – every war in this part of the world seems nasty. It has since had several apparently fair and honest elections, has its own government and police force, its own central bank, its own currency, and for all intents and purposes operates as an independent country - except that nobody has yet recognized it. To visit Somaliland, you need a Somaliland visa, which can be issued in Addis Ababa (and perhaps London and Washington, but that seems less reliable).

So one of the first things we did when we arrived in Addis Ababa a month ago was in fact ensuring our Somaliland visa. We managed to find the embassy cum chancellery cum official residence without much difficulty, thanks to good signposting. Inside the compound, the visa section actually operates out of the residency’s garage. The whole process went very smooth, except that the validity of the issued visa turned out to expire before we actually planned to enter the country. When I commented on this, the first response was to use some Tippex – for my younger readers, this is liquid paper used for corrections in the era of typewriters… what are typewriters? Well, ask your parents – Tippex, thus, over the original dates and then write the new dates in, on the Tippex. Right! When I carefully asked if this would not pose problems at the border, the visa assistant first said “I hope not…”, and then, luckily, agreed that it would perhaps be better to issue a new visa – which was issued just as speedily as the first one. And it worked.

And now we are in Hargeisa…

the Somaliland embassy - or rather, liaison office - signposted in Addis Ababa