Somaliland
Somaliland is a self-declared state internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. It has its own passports, flag, currency, and visas. The government of the de facto state of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the former British Somaliland protectorate. Somaliland lies in northwestern Somalia, bordered by the remainder of Somalia, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa, with the population of 1.5 million people.
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First thing I noticed after emerging from the arrivals area at Hargeisa Airport was the license plates of the cars saying S'land as the country's name in English. It's as if no one wanted to bother spelling the whole thing out since no one recognizes their country anyway! :)
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One of the most recognizable features from Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital city, is the rows of moneychangers on the streets in the city's central business district. More than one local proudly told me that you need no more proof than this that Somaliland is safe for foreigners. Where else in the world can someone sit outside -- in the open and unprotected! -- with virtual fortunes at their feet?
What US $50 will buy you on the street in Hargeisa. Ironically this chunk of bills was one of the only things I bought in the country, and this ended up being the unusual souvenir that I eventually took home with me. The country has almost no tourist infrastructure and the markets are filled with things that locals need for daily life like clothing and toiletries; there is very little of interest for a tourist to buy.
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What became a daily staple during my Somaliland sojourn: goat meat.
The arid climate supports very little by way of vegetables, and goat was consumed every day for nearly a week.
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Most of Hargeisa's streets are semipaved or unpaved, so when it rains the streets turns into raging rivers of mud.
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One of the most difficult things for foreigners to see is the abject poverty that most of the population lives in. Many dwellings on the city's outskirts and roadsides consists of dome-shaped structures made of twine holding together anything that can be scavenged to provide protection from the elements.
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Heading out of town into the desert to check out this natural Hargeisa landmark known as Naaso Hablood, or "girl's breasts".
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Desert tortoises were abundant in the hinterlands, coming out in great numbers at dusk.
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Somaliland takes great care to make sure that foreigners are not harmed within its borders; they want the world to know they are nothing like their lawless neighbors in Mogadishu. One requirement to guarantee the safety of tourists traveling outside Hargeisa is that they travel with an armed guard. On the left, our protection surveys the scene of an accident just outside the restaurant where we were enjoying lunch. On the right, locals also watch to see what all the commotion is about.
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In the middle of the chaos of this sprawling Third World city is the tranquil grounds of the British cemetery, where many young British soldiers who lost their lives battling the Italians in WWII have been laid to rest. The British government pays for the upkeep of these peaceful plots even today.
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Somaliland is a fairly conservative Muslim country, and many women are fully covered like these.
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The MiG War Memorial is a monument in Hargeisa commemorating Somaliland's breakaway attempt in the 1980s. The plane is a MiG-17 fighter aircraft of the Somali Air Force, which crashed nearby. During this aerial bombardment in Somalia's civil war, up to 90% of Hargeisa was destroyed.
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Tank Memorial in downtown Hargeisa. The tank isn't very realistic, and I found the sign behind it advertising weekly flights to Mogadishu to be of more interest.
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Hargeisa's bustling livestock market, a crash course in daily life for these pastoralists. Camels, goats, sheep, and cows are auctioned off in separate locations. Women provide dashing doses of color in an otherwise bleak brown landscape.
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Makeshift tent-like houses ring the livestock market area. Here a woman breaks down leftover goat heads.
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Feast of camel meat for lunch after our visit to the livestock market. It was nice to have something other than goat for a change. The fattier parts come from the hump. First a plate of large slabs of meat is put on each table for diners to inspect, then a butcher comes by and carves everything up into smaller bite-size portions. When eaten with the accompanying spicy sauce, it is quite delicious.
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Stopping off at an overlook with the sprawling city of Hargeisa unfolding below.
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The impressive Laas Geel cave complex on the road from Hargeisa to Berbera, one of Africa's most important rock art sites. The paintings here are estimated to date to somewhere between 9,000 and 3,000 years BC. Among other things, they depict cattle in ceremonial robes. If this were located in Europe, there would be crowds and long lines to get in; this being Somalia, we were the only ones there. A truly amazing experience.
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A few roadside snapshots on the drive from Hargeisa to Laas Geel. I am particularly fond of the elaborate gate that someone spent time and money to build in the middle of nowhere! I would love to come back in a few years and see if anything is ever built here, but I think I already know what the answer will be.
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I suppose it's not surprising to see the prevalence of Coke products, even here at the virtual ends of the earth. But I was surprised to learn as I read on the bottles that Coke is actually bottled locally and not imported. I wonder if this is the only unrecognized country that the Coca-Cola company does business in?
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I knew it was only a matter of time until I would be exposed to the alleged wonders of qat since it is such a big part of the local economy and custom in the Horn of Africa. Qat contains an amphetamine-like stimulant which is said to cause excitement, loss of appetite, and euphoria. The process involves chewing leaves for sometimes hours on end until the effect finally kicks in. For the foreigners among us, it seemed like an awful lot of effort to achieve a barely detectable high. As someone aptly observed, this kind of thing could only be considered a drug in a country where alcohol is illegal. Nonetheless, it is classified as a controlled substance and therefore illegal in most of the western world. Behind the protection of high walls and barbed wire perimeter surrounding our local guide's house, bales of fresh-cut qat come out for us to sample if we so desired.
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Hargeisa is mercifully located in the Somaliland highlands where the temperature is relatively cool compared to the rest of the country. A few hours' drive north and a few thousand feet drop in elevation brings us to the sweltering coastline of Berbera, Somaliland's main port city. Below, a giant Quran at a traffic roundabout at the entrance to the city.
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Berbera police station, a quick introduction into the conservative and xenophobic nature of this part of the country. Foreigners, especially those with cameras, are treated with suspicion everywhere in the country, but we were left mostly alone in Hargeisa. By contrast, we weren't in Berbera more than a few minutes before we were taken to the police station for a scolding for taking unauthorized pictures.
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Walking around Berbera trying to take as many pictures as possible without getting into more trouble with the police.
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Swimming on the Berbera coastline on the Gulf of Aden, honestly the warmest waters I've ever experienced. Stepping into the ocean here was like plunging into a jacuzzi. Armed guards can be seen here "for safety". Since we are still in a conservative Muslim country here, of course women bathe fully clothed. Near sunset, truckloads of police suddenly appear and order everyone out of the water and off the sand to go home, again under the guise of safety. Which left me wondering, safety from what? Somali pirates?
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A few shots from the small city of Sheikh: a barbershop, qat stand, and fruit store.
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One thing I was really looking forward to was visiting Berbera's airstrip, one of the largest in Africa. The 13,582 foot runway was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s in order to counter the United States' military presence in the region. Later, it was used by NASA as an emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle. Today as we found out the hard way after a very long drive to get there, it is now off limits to the public. The guards out front said that the UAE has leased the land and is building a large military base there, so we had to content ourselves with views of the airport access road instead.
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It is said that Africa is where planes go to die. This wreck is one of the few that can be observed at Hargeisa Airport, an interesting last image of the place as my plane prepares to taxi out to the runway for takeoff.
