Djibouti

Visited: March 2023

Duration of visit: 7 days

Capital city: Djibouti City

Population: 1.13 million (2013)

Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

• My first close up with khat – flowering plant native to eastern and southern Africa.
• Exploring Djibouti City: old town, Yemeni restaurants, bustling markets, southern slums and unpleasant beaches.
• Overland drip from Djibouti City to Tadjoura was interfered with floods, blocking the last part of the road.
• A surrealistic description of northern town of Tadjoura as a picturesque little place.
• Travelling on a tuk-tuk to the last frontier – the town of Obock, where Afar people still remain true to their traditions.
• Getting a ride with a truck driver to visit the lowest point in Africa at 155 meters below sea level – salty Lac Assal.

country of the World”, was my easiest explanation. I didn’t know much about Djibouti, beside being a small country, located on the Horn of Africa, that has offered territory to various military bases (including the USA, France and China) and served as an international port to transit cargo to Ethiopia.

Djibouti is a multi-ethnic nation with a population of over a million people, who speak various languages: French and Arabic are two official languages, Afar and Somali are national languages, Arabic is widely spoken especially by emigrants. After the third independence referendum, held in the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas in 1977, the new country was finally born. The capital Djibouti City accounts for 75% of the country’s total population and probably even more in economic activities.

For being such a small country, Djibouti is packed with unbelievably weird landscapes, such as salt lakes, deep ravines, extinct volcanoes, majestic canyons, black lava fields, sunken plains and basaltic plateaus.

They have one thing in common: practically inaccessible or only reachable at a prohibitive cost, which is reducing tourist potential even more.

The country’s most important economic asset is its strategic location, connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. As such, Djibouti’s economy is commanded by the services sector, providing both services; as a transit port for the region and as an international transshipment and refueling center.

I landed at the airport in Djibouti City at night. Immigration officers could have been much friendlier with me. After getting a stamp in my passport, based on preapproved e-visa, I was stopped by the next level security check and separated for additional interrogation.

“Where are you staying? Why are you coming here? For how long time are you doing tourism? What is your work?”

I was getting nervous, because I didn’t have an onward ticket, since my plan was to leave the country overland to Somaliland, when I finally pulled out my magic business card. “This my business card, I work as a sales representative, but I am not here for business!”

As always, a polycarbonate card with all possible security features, made by the company that I represent in Latin America, impressed the immigration officer. The conversation was over and I was suddenly a very respected visitor: “Welcome to Djibouti, mon ami!”

The only option for a ride to my guesthouse was a comfortable taxi. I knew that Djibouti was expensive, but after spending over a week in Eritrea, the shock was even more substantial. I settled down in the cheapest guesthouse available to book in advance:

50.00US$ for a room with shared toilet will not kill my budget, but it is simply not fair, nor logical.

Even more shocking was my first taxi ride negotiation. I managed to knock down the original price of 6.00US$ to half. What sounded as a good deal turned out to be less than a kilometer drive in an ancient Toyota car. I learned the lesson: not trust taxi drivers and use public transport in Djibouti. It was a complicated mission in the beginning, but I mastered to navigate exclusively by mini vans at 0.30US$ a ride.

The least populous African mainland country is extremely centralized, since three quarters of the population is based in the capital city. One of the hottest places in Africa was warm and humid in the beginning of March. Walking around was pleasant, since most Djiboutian didn’t pay too much attention to one of the very few visitors in town.

What can I write about my impressions of the capital?

Djibouti City is ugly, rundown, dirty with lack of beauty and style.

I don’t remember seeing many places, where people seem to not care about anything; their messy clothes, dirty feet, unattractive look and lack of energy didn’t impress me at all.

The old town is the heart of the city. It extends a few blocks, where shops, restaurants, fruit stalls, street vendors, money changers and beggars compete to get their attention. The European quarter is laid out on a grid system spreading around Place Menelik. A weird mix of French colonial houses and Moorish architecture, where most buildings used to have better past, but they still look attractive and picturesque under hot midday sun.

I stopped for a minute, sit in a shadow and immediately found somebody to talk. English is not widely spoken, French is much more useful.

The African quarter is a different story. Main streets function as an organized chaos, where mosques are considered the real soul of the city, markets and street sellers occupy most of the walking areas.

How can the side streets with more residential area be described?

An impoverished mix of crumbling buildings and sheet metal shacks; interconnected with multipurpose, dirt streets, covered with sewage, often flooded or impassable. Goats, people and cars try to find the way through potholes, rubbish and obsolete goods, that end up in front of the houses.

It is not easy to describe a typical man coming from one of the smallest African nations. Maybe the easiest identification could be: addicted to khat. I was warned before arrival that everybody in Djibouti chews khat in the afternoon, but I didn’t exactly understand how this looks like.

I noticed many selling kiosks, where fully covered women were comfortably sitting behind wooden stands, filled up with khat, which was protected with brown mesh textile. Underneath, I could observe a bouquet of green stems with small leaves, called khat.

Illegal in many Western nations, khat is a shrub, typically grown in Ethiopia, Kenya and especially Yemen.

A chewer put leaves in the mouth, chews and keep them for hours on the side of the mouth, between the gums and cheekbones.

The practice, deeply ingrained in Djiboutian society, gives the chewer a mild amphetamine-like high. Although it is mostly chewed by adult males, women and teenagers also use khat. Khat is addictive and has taken a social and economic toll on the nation. It seems that all activities are based on khat.

After buying bundles of intoxicating greens, the consumers gather together in special dedicated areas or lay down on a piece of carton board, slowly pose leaves, drink water or Coca Cola and chat with their friends. It seems that the environment is not important, since the intoxication overrides the need for cleanliness, tidiness and food. According to the acquaintances, male sexual power rises to the heights and the repetitive pleasures can last for hours. I doubt about it.

Various recognized international organizations estimate that at least 25% of household income in Djibouti goes to the narcotic plant. It is a staggering amount, considering many Djiboutians live in poverty.

I calculated that a price of one dose stands at approximately 6.00US$ to 7.00 US$ and repeats 3 to 4 times per week. It is obvious that many consumers have dirty and rotten teeth, while their bodies appear too slim and even malnourished. No wonder that chronic khat chewing also causes health issues, like cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases, tooth decay, sleep deprivation, and psychological effects.

In 1978, Djibouti’s first president Hassan Gouled Aptidon tried to ban the narcotic, but his decision ignited riots on the streets and nearly led to the overthrow of the government.

Since then, the government has largely taken a laissez-faire stance toward the drug, which is legal in the country.

After four days in Djibouti City, I finally moved on to explore the countryside. My original plan was to take a bus toward Tadjoura, get off at the junction to Lac Assal, which is roughly halfway, and try to get a ride to the famous salty lake. It took more than an hour to fill up a van with fourteen passengers, a lot of arguing, unnecessary chatter, even a slight fight among men who were helping the bus driver to attract passengers’ attention.

When we were finally ready to go, it was already 10:00am, cloudy and a slight rain started to fall. The closer we were to Lac Assal, the greyer the clouds were, so I decided to continue my trip all the way to Tadjoura and eventually visit the lake on my way back.

We stopped at the Darriyou river crossing, 10 kilometers before the town. Huge amounts of water were flowing over the main road, which was blocked and unpassable. After an hour, some transport vehicles started to cross the dangerous areas, but our bus driver didn’t have any intention to follow.

Suddenly a group of four men, who crossed the river from the other side to pick up a generator, which was transported on the top of our van, invited me to follow them. After walking through the rising water up to our knees, they gave me a lift to the first hotel.

62.00US$ for a room with running water, A/C, but neglected toilets and without wi-fi, seemed as a rip off to me. I stopped the first bajaj, as tuk-tuk is called here, and I was taken to the eastern part of the city to a recently opened luxury hotel, where the price was set at 140.00US$ per night. “But we include breakfast, lunch and dinner!” was an explanation of Indian receptionist.

“Well, I understand that. However, you are located in Tadjoura and the price is way above my budget!”. I checked the third hotel in town and decided to return to initial place, the Golf Hotel.

Tadjoura is the biggest town in northern Djibouti, located on the coast. The attractive description from different sources that I read before visiting it, disappeared in a moment that I walked along the main street. A picturesque little place with the bright-blue sea lapping and palm trees, whitewashed houses and numerous mosques. What a joke: palm trees, bright-blue sea … An imaginary description of Lonely Planet authors, who probably hadn’t visited the place for decades, could be easily translated to a shithole.

In the late afternoon, most of the men were happily chewing khat, laying down in a careless position, while women were trying to do business, selling simple food, khat, drinks or other less important products.

Neglected, dirty, full of garbage, Djiboutian. I really don’t understand what happened to this country.

I ordered pasta with tuna (from a can) in a restaurant that called for diseases, which unfortunately afterwards reflected on my stomach. Later I stopped for deep fried puff and fish samosas at the improvised market. A couple of Turkish workers invited me for chapati with eggs at a street stall. We sat on the side of the main road, speaking in broken English and evaluating with high marks chapatis topped with uninspiring fried eggs.

After walking back to the hotel, I started to feel the first impact of food tasting in Tadjoura on my stomach. I knew it was going to come, but I wasn’t sure which delicacy caused the diarrhea. I guess it is all part of the experience, but I have been really struggling in Djibouti.

I left my hotel in Tadjoura without a fixed plan in the morning. I quickly found out that buses to Obock were leaving in the afternoon and, apparently, no other alternative was available to reach the last frontier – the remote town of Obock.

In a small town like Tadjoura, you regularly meet familiar people and out of nowhere a tuk-tuk driver that was driving me around the day before appeared. I asked him, if by any chance he would take me to a 63 kilometers remote town of Obock. After a short consideration he nodded his head and showed me five fingers:”5.000 franks!” 30.00US$ would be a lot of money in many countries around Africa, but in Djibouti is a real deal. Especially after we concurred that he would take me there and back for the agreed amount.

63 kilometers is a long distance for motorized rickshaw; we were quickly losing power as soon as the good paved road turned uphill, while during descend the driver was continually breaking to avoid accidents by over-speeding on dangerous curves.

We picked up an Ethiopian refugee, who was walking without water and any personal belongings along the road. Later young ladies joined us on the way to the hospital. The countryside is rather rocky and monotone, with some bushes growing green in the rainy season. Certain deep canyons could be explored, if I had a 4-wheel drive and an opportunity to go off-road.

We arrived to Obock in the midday sun. Not much to see around really. The port with fishing boats, jetty ready to receive ferry from Djibouti twice a week. The main street was full of people, many Yemeni refugees, women selling khat, motorbikes, tuk-tuks and people walking up and down the street.

Most of them were pleasantly welcoming me, looking for the best khat in town and getting ready for the afternoon dope. I walked around the neighboring area to notice an alarming mess, slums, streets full of garbage and improvised, miserable houses that did not resemble decent residences for human beings.

I returned to my tuk-tuk and requested the driver to take me back to Tadjoura. He started to do circles, talking to different people, discussing, stopping and when we were ready to leave, he reminded that the loudspeaker was forgotten in his friend’s vehicle. So once again we drove back to the market area, picked up the loudspeaker and stopped again at a different place.

Communication was not easy, since French or English was not spoken by anybody who quickly gathered around us.

A dozen of goats were released through a compound door. I realized they would be travelling in the back seat of our vehicle as soon as they started to load them.

It could be fun travelling with so many uninvited passengers, but somebody approached telling me that I need to pay extra money to be taken back to Tadjoura, since goats were a priority number one now.

I started to be a little bit inpatient when the driver disrespected our agreement. Suddenly another guy invited me to a house where apparently somebody will offer me a transport in his car. I walked to the house next street and met an American guy Nathan, who was fluently speaking the local language of Afar ethnic group.

“I can take you back to Tadjoura for free in my Landcruiser, but you need to wait here, eat lunch with us and stand by until everybody is ready to go!”.

My schedule was free, so I happily accepted the offer, enjoyed rice with fish for lunch and started conversation with Nate.

Nathan had moved to the area of Tadjoura 3 years ago with his American wife, working for an NGO, offering vaccination to local goats, the most important product of Afar people in the region. He learned the language, helped the local community, integrating as much as possible and happily adapted to enjoy living in the local environment.

The ride back was much more comfortable and I learned plenty about local life in the area, Yemeni immigrants, impact of smuggling goods across the sea from Yemen and more. My perspective on this last frontier of Djibouti opened up and I became more tolerant to local community. The Afar are mainly livestock holders, primarily raising camels but also tending to goats.

They are organized in clan families segregated to two main classes: the asaimara who are the dominant class, and the adoimara who are a working class and are found in the Mabla Mountains between Obock and Tadhoura.

There are two main attractions in Djibouti – salt lake of Lac Assal, the lowest point on the African continent, and natural wonder of Lac Abbé, reminding on Martian landscape, with hundreds of spikelike limestone chimneys. Both attractions are extremely difficult to visit without a private off-road vehicle, which are prohibitively expensive and out of question for me.

My plan to visit Lac Assal was to get off the bus in the junction off the main road and attempt to get a lift to the 15 kilometers distant lake.

After 30 minutes of waiting in an unpleasant windy area, surrounded by bizarre windmills, the first vehicle arrived. A long truck was on the way to the lake to load salt and seemed to be the only reliable option. I jumped to the cabin and was welcomed by a driver, who could speak reasonably good English.

 “Yugoslavia is good. Yugoslav workers built the road from Djibouti to Lac Assal in the 90’s. The best road in the whole country. You are my friend!”, were the drivers’ words of welcome.

I didn’t know this interesting fact from my ex-dismantled home country in which I grew up, but it was nice to be warmly accepted in Djibouti.

Tasting delicious Somali tea, we were descending fast down to 155 meters below sea level, the third-lowest point on Earth, after the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Dark rocky countryside in shape of volcanoes and crescent lava remains changed into vast depression with a lake in the middle. The shores of the lake are converted into hard salt up to 60 meters deep.

The blinding white contrast to black lava fields was visible from the distance. We stopped in the area where conglomerates of salt were already prepared to be loaded by a bulldozer. It so easy to produce salt here.

The salinity level of its waters is 10 times that of the sea, so it is not very appealing to swim in the lake. I noticed a substantial increase in the temperature, only standing under the sun for a few minutes, observing this unique nature and taking photos. I walked into the salty water to perceive the oily feeling, but I didn’t dare to swim deeper into the lake.

The load reduced our speed on the way back. No other vehicle was noticed. In appreciation for a ride I invited my host for a khat that would help him to relax after long shift. Highly appreciated gift in Djibouti.

Few places in the world are as threatened by climate change as the small country of Djibouti. It is estimated that warming in Djibouti will increase between 0.6°C and 2.4°C by 2050 and up to 5.4°C by 2100. As already one of the hottest places on the planet, this is a bleak forecast. On the other side, Djibouti is expected to experience an increase in the occurrence and intensity of heavy rainfall events, increasing risks of floods as well as increases in the intensity and frequency of dry periods and water scarcity.

Water shortages is a major ongoing concern in Djibouti. Nearly all drinking water comes from aging wells that tap groundwater aquifers. Higher temperatures and scarce rainfall have dried out many wells throughout the country.

Djibouti is the best example of a country that has been screwed up without wars, conflicts, natural disasters, foreign occupation, political, religious or racial turmoil. With approximately a million people, strategic geopolitical location along the Red Sea and international support, it should be next Dubai, Doha or Singapore.

What has gone wrong here?

It is the question I asked myself every moment I traveled around this country, where I pay 60.00 USD$ for the cheapest & horrible hotel room, minimum 5.00US$ for a taxi ride in a half century oldy Toyota or 15.00US$ for a meal in a restaurant that makes me sick.

Is it khat? The plant chewed by most male population, making them fly for a few hours of a day to forget all problems and turns them to addicted freaks, who only care about being doped as much often as possible?

Or is it the influence of foreign military base, expats, humanitarian organization representatives and rich businessman that spend unnecessary huge amounts of money?

Nobody expects anything special before visiting Djibouti. Maybe I was too naïve to separate a whole week to find something appealing, exciting or special in this tiny country on African Horn. As much as I tried, it turned out to be a failure after failure. There is really not much special to write about Djibouti. I don’t remember feeling so disappointed, cheated in a sense of overcharged for any dollar that I spent.

If Africa is well known to be expensive, especially due to the fact that the quality doesn’t justify the high price, Djibouti is an absolute winner.

I could have spent hundreds of dollars and time in much nicer locations. Therefore, my advice is the following: “Come to Djibouti only if you want to visit every single country in the world.”