Overland travel, especially through the developing, occasionally has one at a border looking across at a “no go” country. These are countries at war or unsafe for reasons such as disease or terrorist activity. Such moments inspire in me an immense curiosity of what the place and people are actually like. A curiosity that feeds upon itself and has me wondering about the possibility of actually crossing the border.
In 1987 near the end of 2 months back packing through East Africa I found myself on the northern Kenyan island of Lamu, a stone’s throw from the Somali border and the capitol Mogadishu. I toyed with the idea of crossing into Somalia and clearly remember the Lonely Planet guide of the time wax lyrical about miles of beautiful golden beaches, shark infested waters and the politically unstable situation under the Marxist dictator Mohamed Siad Barre a man that the UN described at the time as having one of the worst human rights records in Africa.
In 2008 on a trip to Ethiopia I visited the city of Harare set right up aganst the Somali border and at one road intersection was wistfully gazing across into a failed state. A country racked by terrorism and warring clans. A country in which the terrorist organisation Al-Shabab kidnaps foreigners and holds them for ransom as well as practising piracy on the high seas.
On Tuesday I will be there.
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