I reckon there would be a market for T shirts that merely had on the back “Where the f*** is Djibouti?”. This little country is only 200km wide and 400km long. It sits wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia with the Red Sea to the east. It has a massive, busy deep water shipping port. Enhancing its strategic importance is the interminable civil war and social disintegration of Somalia to the south. The west’s interest in intervening in the Somali war nosedived after American reversals early on and now they content themselves with limiting the terrorist threat by bolstering the surrounding states’ security. Happy times for Djibouti!
The US maintain a permanent military base here, Camp Lemonniare. In addition there is ongoing commitment of troops to Djibouti from a strange array of countries including Germany, Italy, China, India and Japan. The local boast on arrival is that this is the safest country in Africa, conveniently ignoring the recent terrorist bombing by Al Shabbab.
The capitol, Djibouti city has an unusual vibe to it. It is a low rise sleepy African village with wide streets that, for Africa are pretty clean. It is cooler than anywhere else we have stayed with temps in the low 30s and a nice cooling sea breeze. There is one beach but the dirty grey sands lead to unappealing mud flats.
There is no bustle here, all is laid back and a wander through the tree lined European quarter in the heart of town reveals the inner charm of this place. This is probably the only place in Africa where photographing the (intrinsically uninteresting) parliament is allowed by contrast even just walking on the other side of the road from the president’s palace earns us an exhortation to move on by the police. One mosque we photograph without incident but the next one earns us comments from the locals.
A lady at a spice stall asks us to take her photo and is delighted when we do so but we get the schizoid treatment from a random local guy who growls us out about taking pictures of a local woman.
The true highlight of this little place happens in the evening, namely dinner. One legacy, arguably the only good thing, that the French leave in their former colonies is a culture of food and wine and this place is no exception. Croissants are great and the baguettes crisp. Our seafood dinner was nothing short of being magnificent. Despite being an Islamic state, wine is readily available. It is French and tastes good. Sated and slightly titubant we meander back to the fortified compound that is our hotel and have the first night’s sleep in a bed for over a week!