Arriving at the Oriental Hotel at around 10am we met up (again!) with Cole and Amanda who'd been around Somaliland while we were in Djibouti. We also met Abdi, possibly the friendliest and most helpful hotel manager on the planet. He welcomed us, gave us a discount we didn't ask for, and told us all about Somaliland. We'd gained a feel for the place before even setting foot outside. When we did set foot outside, it was already dark – we'd rested for the day after our slightly bumpy ride and then went off in search of food. The restaurant format in Hargeisa seems to be uniform – you walk in, get asked what you want, ask what there is, get given a list of a maximum of 2 possibilities, and then choose one of them. You then fork over a ridiculous amount of banknotes for the pleasure of having eaten your fish/goat/spaghetti/unidentified meat, and then leave with your appetite pleasantly satisfied. The meal was followed by an evening on the qat playing Jungle Speed and catching up with the Canadian-Swedish team on the happenings of the past week. When 8am finally came, they left back to Ethiopia. As for our comedown, refer to the Gonder post...
Our charming ladies in pre-munch mode
We spent the following days wandering the streets of Hargeisa or lazing in bed watching B-class movies on the temperamental satellite TV. The city is fun, different from your classic capital city. It has one main road (wishfully named Independence Road) along which there are qat sellers, an inexplicably large amount of shoe salesmen, moneychangers and the like.
The moneychangers take up the largest space due to the amount of completely worthless currency they have to keep – and unlike any other city I have ever seen, they are happy to sit on the ground with their money in front of them, seemingly happy that no one is going to steal it. The largest banknote, the 500 Shilling note, is worth 5 eurocents. For convenience, the notes themselves are banded up into stacks of 50.000 Shillings but it still means that changing 100€ means you have to walk away with a plastic bag stuffed with 2000 banknotes. Thankfully, street crime is also very low in Hargeisa and I feel like we could walk around with large amounts of dollars and no-one would bug us about it. The lack of cash machines in Somaliland means I can't test that theory but that's how it feels.
In any other country, this would be a picture of a very desirable man. T keeps track of his 85€.
Hargeisa's prime “tourist attraction” is the war memorial commemorating the dead of the siege from the Somali government during the civil war before 1991. Rather than going for the boring statue of a soldier or a similar option which would have been explored in many countries, the memorial takes the form of a large plinth on top of which is a MiG jet of the Somali air force which was shot down during the war! It's fun, although it can't capture your attention more than the time it takes to look at the plane, take a picture of it, and look at it again. We then continued wandering the dusty streets looking for other strange stuff of which we found a little, notably an ice-cream truck and the independence memorial, a very large hand holding a map of the country.
The independence monument, where Somalilanders hint that they could do with a hand on this issue
Airplane!
Somalilanders themselves are very friendly although, unlike the Sudanese, they are also very outgoing and eager to engage us in conversation. We've had a few fun conversations too, most notably in a shop where we went to buy Coke :
Man: Where are you from?
M: Finland
Man: Ah! There are many Finnish Somalis here. The leader of the opposition is a Finn... The chairman of the Parliament is also a Finn. You should go to meet him, he will be very happy to see you!
T: I'm not sure he would have time to see us though, I suppose he is a very busy man!
Man: Don't worry! Just go to the Parliament tomorrow, and ask who is the chairman. I'm sure he will be happy to see you.
..and also in the Immigration Department of the Foreign Ministry.
Man: I have a wife and 14 children! But now I want another wife. I would like an Italian wife.
T: And is your wife happy about that?
Man: Ahh yes, she is very very happy! (looking at T's picture) Is this your picture?
T: Yes it is. Not a very good one but it's still me.
Man: Yes you are right, you are not very photogenic. (looks at M's picture) But you are very beautiful! Would you like to be my wife?
Taking photos in Hargeisa is fraught with difficulty - as is avoiding electrocution when going out to buy a CokeThe only downside of tourism in this country is that the government is rather paranoid about the security of foreigners. We were not allowed to leave Hargeisa without an armed escort and a hired car – something which obviously put a bit of a hole in our wallets. Intercity travel isn't allowed without an armed escort either, and most of the country is off limits – our intention to go to visit Burao was foiled because “some guys were caught there a while ago”. One evening while eating our spaghetti we were told by the police to go back to the hotel. We finished up, and walked back to the hotel while the police crawled after us in their car to ensure that we were actually going back. Abdi called them up the next morning and explained to us: “they were chasing some guys last night. That's why they told you to come back”. That's how it is around here.
Hargeisa was a nice place to hang around in, but with our cash reserves running out we needed to get going. Abdi sorted us a car and a guy with a gun to drive us to Berbera, on the northern coast, with a stop at Laas Geel on the way. For the first time in a week, we managed to get up on time to get going.
M's Mathematics: Several kilos of spaghetti + 5 or 6 goats = Somali lunch
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