…or fun times with the police and military in Ethiopia and Somaliland.
In summary, we: check out the hyena-men of Harar; go free camping in Eastern Ethiopia and Somaliland; visit the rock paintings of Las Geel; swim in the Sea of Aden and play pirates in Somaliland; get detained by the Ethiopian military; visit the Omo Valley; and (finally) arrive in Kenya.
In Addis Ababa we met up with a friend from New Zealand who is currently overlanding through Africa. On chatting about our upcoming plans, Herman invited us to join him in his landrover. Given my previous notes on the disgustingness of public transport in Ethiopia and the obvious coolness of an Ethiopian road trip – we were quick to agree. We were pretty excited to escape the rains and get off the escarpment / plateau that characterizes much of Ethiopia. Sure enough, within about 40km, we descended to catch our first glimpse of the Rift Valley, the weather cleared and we arrived in a sticky Awash National Park. There were not a great many animals in Awash, but the scenery was pretty and we did see a few bits and pieces. Mainly we saw the interestingly attired local people farming sugar cane as we got lost for about three hours in the surrounding areas.
Harar was a cute town, but not the fortressed city made out in the guide books. For me, Morocco still beats all in that respect, with Tunisia coming in a reasonable second. Harar had a nice feel though with friendlier people, vibrant colors, copious amounts of chat (a leaf that the local population chews as a stimulant and according to Thomas, the only one who tried it, tastes pretty, pretty awful (more recent update: Thomas’s subsequent years in Yemen have proven that this is an acquired taste and he is no longer of this opinion)) and a different type of walled city with cobbled alley ways winding through brightly painted block houses. We did not entirely escape calls of “faranji, money”, but these were minimized and we enjoyed the place. One of the main attractions in Harar is the nightly hyena feeding on the outskirts of town. While this was a traditional activity of the “hyena men”, it has now developed into somewhat of a tourist activity (no matter what anyone says otherwise).
We had decided that our next stop would be Somaliland, so we duly got up early to deal with the drive out there and the inevitable delays associated with African border crossings. We were not to be disappointed. First, we managed to get lost and drive out towards the Ethiopian province of Somali for about 75km. On growing concerned about whether we would be reaching the border town or had actually driven straight through it, we had the following discussion with a helpful local: “Ah… are we in Somalia? or Ethiopia?” “No, no, Ethiopia” *General sigh of relief / nervous laughter follows*. Anyway, the province of Somali is pretty unstable so on realizing we were nowhere near our intended destination we hotfooted it back to Jijiga at a fairly rapid pace. Finally, having taken the right road and arrived in Wajaale, we hit up immigration and received our exit stamps in a pretty efficient manner, only to be foiled in receiving clearance for the car due to the exit port on the papers being different to the one through which we were trying to exit. This is totally typical of African customs / immigration and no one was interested in taking any initiative or helping us, notwithstanding the ridiculousness of their problem with the papers and not least because it was Sunday and they were more interested in chewing chat than doing any work. This left us in no man’s land whereby we had exited Ethiopia, but could not really enter Somaliland. On reflection, we decided to camp up for the night and parked in the customs lot. The military man on the lot was busy talking on his phone and not interested in us, so we figured it was okay. Not so. Two hours later (once he was finally finished with his phone call) he turned up to inform us of this in fairly stroppy Amharic. We played dumb. A translator showed up with the following message: “this… is a military area… so… get out”. We played dumb for a while longer and ended up with about six AK47 carrying, camouflage clad Ethiopian military (not the jelly shoes ones) standing around us trying to tell us to leave. After a fair bit of a stand-off they settled on us moving the car about ten meters and, as we got up to do this, decided that having received this win it was actually okay where it was after all, but that we should move it a few meters from the gate so it was more safe from thieves. At this point, we gave up and found some beer. Similar to the border crossing between Ethiopia and Sudan, this crossing consisted of a bridge over a dry river bed filled with rubbish and a rope on either side of the bridge. While we had issues with the car, the officials were more than happy for us to walk back and forth between the towns on the Somaliland and Ethiopian sides pretty much as we wanted the entire time we were there.
After a fair wait, we finally managed to arrive in Hargeisa. Hargeisa is the capital of the unrecognized state of Somaliland. From about 1940 to 1960 the area that is now Somaliland was under British rule as “British Somaliland” and on independence around 1960, Somaliland joined with Puntland and Somalia to form what we now consider to be the Democratic Republic of Somalia (failed state though it is). As the Somalilanders were only too happy to tell us, this was a big mistake. After the civil war, the Somalilanders had clearly had enough of the union and declared their independence in 1991. They proceeded to rebuild Hargeisa, set up a currency, establish a military and a government, and control their borders. Basically they seem to have done very well for themselves in the past 20 years or so and Hargeisa actually seems pretty well off compared to many places in Ethiopia. They also import Anchor milk from New Zealand and, as such, more people seemed to know where New Zealand was than most other places we have visited (I even met a guy that had heard of Fonterra). Hargeisa looks more like a town than a city and there is not a great amount to do – it is really more about being in Somaliland and checking out the people and place (i.e., it is about the vibe). On that note, the vibe is variable – basically a bit of the good and a bit of the not so good. Certainly not the worst people we have come across, but they will not be taking any awards off of the Sudanese for being the nicest people ever. Unfortunately, we were there during Ramadan which certainly affects travel for people that are fairly focused on what food we can try. Let’s be honest, we still managed.
Some notes on Somaliland generally:
- The people smell a lot better than in Ethiopia. Win.
- The currency is ridiculous. They use the Somaliland Shilling and the US Dollar pretty interchangeably and the money changers sit on all the street corners in Hargeisa with cages of money. For US$50, we received 335,000 Somaliland Shillings. The highest denomination we saw while we were there was a 1000 Shilling note, and generally they use 500 Shilling notes. This obviously results in one walking around with bricks of currency to go out and buy a few groceries.
- They eat a lot of camel meat. This is my second experience of camel, and I must say that they do a better job of it than the Tunisians. However, it is really a stewing meat from what I experienced (either that or I was not getting the best bits) and I feel that they would benefit by being educated in cooking it in this manner. I did manage to score what I think was some very tender slow cooked goat so maybe there is hope. Thomas did also taste camel milk, which is apparently very nutritious, but nothing to write home about.
- You can buy a legitimate Somalia passport on the black market. As the Somali state completely failed, getting a passport was privatized and you can buy a real Somalia passport from the money changers with the cages around town. Getting a Somaliland passport is more of an official process. Ironically, however, any citizen of Somaliland holding a Somaliland passport, would not be recognized internationally, so the black market Somalia one would actually be more useful.
- They are not the most accepting people (I would go so far as to say that they are fairly xenophobic) and it is actually the first Muslim country we have been in where dressing the way they dress and wearing a headscarf was necessary. Ironically, one particularly obnoxious individual actually had a go at Thomas for greeting him “Salaam Aleikum”, the traditional Islamic greeting in all of these countries, on the basis that he was not Muslim.
- In addition to wearing a headscarf, the women wear these moo-moo style dresses that I duly went out and bought. I think me wearing pants was just a touch too risqué for them. As Thomas kindly pointed out to me on my donning it for the first time – “well, it is not glamorous”. This was likely not assisted by the fact that in my disgust at having to wear this get-up, I went out and bought material that looked much like I imagine a zebra would appear were one on a LSD trip at the time of viewing said zebra.
In typical Africa fashion you have to get permission to do anything, and no one wants to be involved in giving it. On our first morning in Hargeisa we found ourselves sitting in what seemed like a war council with the chief of police in Hargeisa and about six other camouflage and beret clad military looking police to discuss our travel plans and the possibility of a waiver letter from the Special Protection Unit police escort that used to be required and seems to be sometimes still enforced. Certainly different from travel most other places we have been. We then proceeded to spend another morning and have a big argument with other policemen getting said waiver. This involved one a*#hole actually miming shooting us with an AK47. Not the most fun experience, but they all got very worked up when I ran with some massive crocodile tears to make the point that they were not exactly encouraging tourists to visit their country. Anyway, ultimately the friendly officers turned up again and we finally received our official travel letter which was basically a scrawled statement with the relevant town names on a ripped bit of paper. He did put a stamp on it though – of course. Africa loves a good stamp. We did not wait around long to head on out of Hargeisa.
The one “tourist attraction” in Somaliland is the ancient rock art at Las Geel. These paintings are regarded to be at least 5,000, possibly 10,000 years old, and were blatantly amazing. Better yet, because we went on the first day of Eid al Fitr, there were no guards around and we got in without a permit from the relevant Ministry. Given the designs, the art looks like it was done by the holy man of some pastoral society whilst on a stimulant. There is not much more to say about these than that they were really great and the scenery in the area was worth going to alone.
We also headed to Berbera on the coast of the Sea of Aden. We had been led to believe that it had a lot of very quaint old Ottoman architecture, and while it did have some pretty buildings, I would not say it was quite as we had anticipated. Also, I had no love for the people as interactions included stone throwing teenagers, the idiot that had a go at Thomas and some cops with serious big man syndrome. We did manage several swims in the Sea of Aden (amazing), however, and the area was certainly worth visiting as it was totally undeveloped and different from anything any of us had experienced previously. We also obviously got dressed up as pirates in honor of being on the coast in Somaliland. Somaliland was great for free camping as the country is fairly sparsely populated with great scenery and we found some fantastic secluded spots in the wilderness. Unfortunately, on the night that we tried to free camp on the beach in Berbera, the cops showed up at 10pm and told us we had to camp outside the police station. This was probably mainly an ass covering mechanism for them because they do not want anything to happen to us on their patch and we were moving around the country without an SPU escort. That said, the cops were very polite and friendly about the whole thing.
On finishing up in Somaliland we had a comparatively smooth time getting back into Ethiopia and figured that we were done with all the crap, Ethiopia being fairly easy to travel in. We were wrong. Having taken one road out from Addis, we figured we would take a back road and make a loop down into the south of the country. After about two hours on a dirt road we reached a military outpost. It appeared that we had once again, stumbled into the Ethiopian province of Somali. Unfortunately, this time around the military guys had no intention of letting us hotfoot it back the way we had come. Apparently the road ahead was dangerous and we were told to wait ten minutes for them to get orders on what to do with us. About three hours later we had managed to establish through friends that they had recently captured a bunch of “terrorists” in the region and this was probably why they were so jumpy about our safety. Irritating, but fair enough – we thought. We settled in to wait. About another hour later they decided that we could not sleep in the town for the night due to safety risks and that we should move to the military compound. Three minutes later we found ourselves sitting outside the military compound, but not being allowed inside, while about six trucks full of AK47 toting, bandana and camouflage clad troops came careening into the compound waiving their guns and cheering – obviously very pleased with themselves for something they had done. I must say, while none of this was directed at us, it was quite creepy to see as it looked like something out of one of those Africa gone mad movies. Half an hour later they decided that the military compound was not for us, but that we must go back to Jijiga (the regional capital) because the Commander in charge needed to know everything about us. They also insisted that we have two AK47 wielding guys in the back of our car.
At this point we started to get fairly uncomfortable for a number of reasons. These included: it was no longer clear whether the guys that were with us were for our protection or in order to detain us for some reason (being told that they wanted to know everything about us was pretty out of character and they basically informed us that we were to go with them “or else”); and we had no idea what was going to happen once we got to Jijiga. Anyway, we loaded into the car and drove off into the night for a few hours with our escort, who we treated to numerous sing alongs at high volume, including one particularly fine version of I want to break free by Queen (we are nothing if not literal). Thankfully, when we finally arrived in Jijiga all that awaited us was a stern talk from some guys from the Ethiopian “immigration” department. What was more interesting was the fact that they would not acknowledge the danger of the road we were on at all, but rather said that they were shocked we were there because there were so many wash outs, rivers, valleys and tributaries and that it was a very bad road. They were also at pains to let us know that while it would appear to a casual observer that we had been detained by the military, we were not under arrest and that we were free in Ethiopia (obviously notwithstanding the fact that we were not free to go down that road or to leave the town until the next morning). In conclusion, we are fairly certain that their concern was twofold. First, they did not want anything happening to a bunch of faranjis on their patch. Fair enough. Second, they are doing some dodgy-assed s*#t down there that does not include the taking of captives when things go down between Al Shebab (or whoever it is) and the military and they clearly do not want anyone international knowing about it. Enough said, taking all that into consideration, we had no issues agreeing to take another route to our intended destination.
We visited Shashemene on the way south which is the supposed homeland of Ethiopia’s (and therefore the world’s) Rastafarian community. These dudes all worship Haile Selassie as the final descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and believe themselves to be the chosen people of the Nazarite tribe of Israel. Apparently Haile Selassie gave them the land when he regained power after the Italians were ousted as a reward for the Rastas helping him out. To be honest, the community largely looked like an excuse for a whole bunch of people to sit around getting stoned all the time.
The final place we wanted to see before heading to Moyale and entering Kenya was the Omo Valley. Omo is renowned for the tribal people that live in the area and as such has increasingly become a bit of a tourist attraction in recent years. While the area has definitely been affected by tourism and the people do want to be paid for photos, dependent on the area you go to, it is not entirely zoo-like. The locals still wander about in their traditional garb and many villages pretty much continue to live as they had prior to tourism. While there are many tribes in South Omo, I will only mention a few of the more colorful ones below.
Karat-Konso is the jumping-off point for this region and from there we went to see some of the Konso villages. The villages were more interesting architecturally than for the people, but their situation on various hilltops was pretty idyllic.
Heading towards Key Afer and Jinka one enters the territory of the Tsemai and Ari tribes and it is possible to visit Mago National Park. The park itself has suffered a lot from poaching, but we did see some animals, spend the night in a fantastic campsite and make a visit out to some Mursi villages. The Mursi are a tribe that are famous for disfiguring their women by making an incision in their lower lip to stretch it out and insert a large clay lip-plate (the bigger the plate the woman manages to insert, the more valuable she will be as a bride). They also often knock out the two bottom middle teeth to make room for the plate. A Mursi women sans lip-plate is a pretty damned disturbing.
The land of the Hamer people is centered around a town called Turmi pretty close to the border with Kenya. All the children want to hold your hand in these parts – even adorable children with troll haircuts that cannot quite get the courage to join in.
The Hamer are known for their distinctive costumes (including the women’s habit of smearing their hair with animal lard and red ochre and donning traditional leather outfits) and for the bull jumping ceremony that boys are required to complete before they can be accepted by the tribe as men. This ceremony involves the soon to be man running across several bulls butt naked with a deranged afro hairdo and the women getting drunk and taunting various men into ceremonially whipping them with sticks to create honorific scars which show their devotion to the boy jumping the bulls. The guys whipping them really go for it, so it can be pretty disturbing to watch. We went along to a bull jumping ceremony and, as we turned up early, we had a bunch of time hanging out with the people before a bunch of other foreigners turned up to see the guy run across the bulls. In this time I was expected to dance with the women, which culminated in me being brought towards one of the whipping guys who jumped up to whip me. While this all seemed to be a big joke on their part (they clearly thought they were hilarious), Thomas and I decided at this point that I had probably done enough dancing for the day. I also managed to finish the day totally covered in the animal fat they had all over them from repeatedly being grabbed at to get up and dance. Thomas and Herman were not required to partake in this, so, naturally, thought it was hilarious.
We checked out a few other tribes in the area (including the Karo and Dasanech), but nothing was really as cool as the Hamer people. One of the final towns we visited in Omo was Omerate. There really is not much to say about this town other than welcome sign at the entrance of the town has to be one of my all-time favorites: “Omerate – Value your life”. It is a lasting regret that we did not think to take a picture of this excellent welcome.
Having finished up with Omo, we crossed into Kenya at Moyale and spent a day getting to Marsabit in Northern Kenya. I am pretty sure the bus driver was attempting to determine the exact speed he would need to drive to flip the bus on the appalling dirt roads. Happily, his journey of discovery was not completed on our bus ride. Jumbo Kenya.
August 2013