Categories
Somalia and Eritrea

Deluge

It is close to midnight and the teeming rain hammers our corrugated roof. I have never experienced rain like it! Despite this hotel being particularly downmarket we do have aircon that actually works until a massive clap of thunder and all power is lost until the next day. Fortunately the storm means that our overnight low is only mid 20s rather than the more usual 30 for this time of year. Nonetheless it was a hot and sweaty night’s sleep.This place gets only 5-8 days rain per year and we have experienced 2 of them already. The rest of the time it is dry and searingly hot.
This morning it is still raining heavily and many of the streets here are underwater.

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There is no prospect of going on our boat ride so we head for the hills to a village called Sheikh. It is a scenic 2 hour drive up there on a winding hairpin bend road. The view from the top back to Berbera on the coast was beatiful despite the clouds. The highlight here was the remains of the British garrison built in 1901 and decommissioned in 1941.

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Berbera itself is the only sheltered deep water harbour on the Gulf of Aden. In ancient times it traded spices, food, Frankincense and Myrrh with Egypt and Yemen. In medieval times it was part of the slave trade. During British colonial times it was the capitol of what was then British Somaliland. In modern times it has been a militarily strategic port successively for UK, Italy, USSR and USA.Today it is also the major trading port for Somaliland and neighbouring Ethiopia.
For a city with such a proud and long history all I have to say is that it is pretty bloody awful now. There are tantalising glimpses of old Arabic and colonial architecture but it is all terribly run down. Everywhere there are shells of buildings that look like they have been bombed but they have just fallen apart as there was never any significant fighting here. It is dilapidated and dirty and in this place the demeanour of the locals matches that of the place.

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Harbourside
Harbourside

The women on the tour here have experienced the most hassles in Berbera. Respectful attempts at photography through consent are met with hostility. We have seen 2 ugly street brawls between locals. Even photographing local buildings elicits an angry rebuke from the locals. Late in the afternoon our bus stops for us to take photos of the outside of a mosque. A maniac on the roof hurls abuse and a large stone at us which lands a couple of feet in front of me. This is an environment hostile towards us, unlike in Hargeisa I would not dream of wandering in the streets without our armed guard here.

The offending mosque
The offending mosque

I will be happy to head back to Hargeisa tomorrow.