Travel report: Djibouti
Date of visit: October 2017
After spending twelve days in Ethiopia and two days in Somaliland, Djibouti was the last country I visited on a trip through the Horn of Africa. Djibouti is a tiny country in East Africa and one of the least visited countries in the world. I bet many people don’t even know that the country exists. Therefore, it is obvious that there are not so many possibilities to travel to Djibouti. In fact, only nine airports offer flights to Djibouti. I was all the luckier that Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, is home to one of these airports.
Djibouti was my seventh country in Africa and together with Somalia certainly the most special one I visited at that time. I must admit, however, that my desire for this micro-state has passed a few weeks before my arrival. I was shocked to find that Djibouti is an enormously expensive travel destination. The hotel prices are outrageously expensive and individual tours in the country cost half a fortune. This is a pity, as Djibouti offers some sensational landscapes. Lake Abbé or Lake Assal for example look like from another planet.
The desire for Djibouti passed even more after my arrival, as I had to endure the toughest questioning of all times from the immigration officer. “Why are you here? What do you want to do here? What is your profession? Oh, can you prove that?” Of course I couldn’t, because I never travel with a business card. The reason for this strange questioning is probably that hardly any tourists go to Djibouti. The only foreigners in the country are soldiers, because Djibouti has a geostrategically important location and therefore provides a navy base for some countries. For example for the Americans and French, but also for the Japanese and Chinese. A foreigner who has nothing to do with the military seemed to be rather suspect.
After I answered all the questions, the lady went through my passport. She turned the page from back to front and commented on practically every stamp. “Oh, you were in many countries as I see… you were in India… you were in Lebanon…” At that moment I felt uneasy, because I knew that the Israel stamp was no longer many pages away. Djibouti is a Muslim country and although I have not read anywhere that Israel stamps are a problem, it can lead to difficulties in Muslim countries. I noticed that the lady had arrived at the Israel stamps because she suddenly fell silent and studied a passport page more closely. “Please wait a moment…” She ran away.
Shortly afterwards she came back and sent me to her colleague. There the questioning began all over again: “Why did you come here? What are you going to do here? What is your profession? Do you have a business card? After I had also overcome this hurdle, I was sent to the visa on arrival counter. The Internet said that a transit visa for less than 72 hours would cost 25 dollars, but the man behind the desk charged me 75 dollars. My protest didn’t help and later I found out that the $25 was misinformation. Nevertheless, I entered the country quite annoyed.
First impressions of Djibouti… I wanted to leave immediately
A cab driver took my luggage into the car. “Are you Muslim?” he asked. “Yes,” I lied, as I always do when I’m in Muslim countries. The driver was a young man and started complaining about his life in Djibouti, while I was observing the streets we were driving through. I must admit I had a strange feeling here in Djibouti City. The streets were often very long, but almost deserted. I really saw very few people on the street, which seemed strange to me. I had the feeling to have landed in a ghost town.
20 minutes later, I arrived at my hotel. Things got worse when I entered my room. There are not many hotels in the city and most of them are ridiculously expensive. I booked the cheapest one on booking.com for $60 per night and as always, you get what you pay for. It was a small filthy room with no window and the bathroom looked disgusting. There were also stains on the bed and I was not sure if it was blood or something else.
As already mentioned Djibouti was the end of my journey. I was already exhausted and this hotel room gave me the rest. Moreover, I arrived at the point where I wanted to leave the country immediately and only 2 hours after landing. I never had such a feeling in any country in the world. But I flirted with flying back to Addis Ababa earlier and spending the last two days of my trip there. My return flight home was from Addis anyway.
It wasn’t just the hotel room and the annoying arrival at the airport that took away my desire. I simply didn’t know what else to do in Djibouti. As I already mentioned, a trip to Lake Assal or Lake Abbé would have been an option, but the costs were too high for me. I wrote to some tour operators before my trip and a two-day trip would have cost at least $500, which was too much for me. Besides, my thirst for action was low in the meantime anyway.
So I decided to go to the city center with the goal to visit the Ethiopian Airlines Office and change my flight. It was early afternoon and there was actually still a flight on the same evening. If I hurried, I could still catch it. Unfortunately Friday was Friday and Friday is in Muslim countries what Sunday is in Europe. That means in many countries the shops are closed on Friday. That was probably also the reason why so few people were on the streets.
I couldn’t book a flight online neither. My flight out of Djibouti was a flight to Frankfurt with stop in Addis Abeba. Therefore, my flight to Frankfurt would have been automatically cancelled, if I had skipped the leg from Djibouti to Addis. I was going to give it another try the day after.
Entering a Djibouti “Spa”
I stayed in the center of Djibouti City and was slightly frustrated. A man approached me and asked if he should show me the center. He caught me in a weak moment and I consented, although I usually don’t pay attention to hustlers. The man, who was about 45 years old, showed me some restaurants and bars. Afterwards he wanted to show me a spa. A little naive, I agreed. The idea of spending my time in a spa was not so bad.
We arrived at a run-down building at the entrance where the word spa stood tiny. The man went ahead and I followed him up the stairs. At that moment I wondered what I was actually doing here. Only a few days earlier I read about a report about a tourist who was the victim of a robbery in Djibouti. The man apparently noticed that I was not so comfortable. “Don’t worry, just take a look. It costs nothing to look at,” he said.
Only a few seconds later we were at the “Spa”. It was a shabby room with a large bed in which three women lay. One of them, an old and fat prostitute, got up immediately and walked in my direction. “Hello baby, would you like a massage?” I immediately turned around and left the room towards the stairs. The guy who had spoken to me on the street followed me. “Wait, you haven’t seen the second floor yet!
Outside I felt better again. But the guy was still at my side and I had to get rid of him again. “Will you pay me a drink?” he asked. I laughed loudly and said no. “Will you pay me one in the evening” he checked. “Maybe.” With this answer I hoped he would leave me alone. At least he gave me some important advice, because when I took a picture of the Place Menekil, the main square of the city, I heard a loud “HEY!” I saw that it was a policeman, because there is a small police station on the square. “You can’t take a picture here,” said the Hustler. At a later moment I learned that photographing people in Djibouti City had already been arrested.
Djibouti City – not my cup of tea
The spa story was one of the few moments I had worth mentioning in Djibouti. For the remaining two days I spent more or less time watching the goings on around Place Menekil from various restaurants. I tried my luck with Ethiopian Airlines again the next day. A rebooking would have cost me about 250 dollars and I could have left the country 24 hours earlier than planned. In the end it wasn’t worth it. I would also have needed a new visa on arrival in Ethiopia and a hotel in Addis, so the extra cost would have been more than 350 dollars.
Nevertheless, I didn’t like my stay in Djibouti City. It seems that Djibouti’s capital is a polarizing city, as some travel writer call it the Paris of Africa and some others call it a dreadful place. I definitely belong to the latter, as Djibouti City is just a boring place in my opinion. Although it’s a city by the sea, the beaches I have seen were not nice and the ocean looked dirty. The good thing is that the city is quite safe for African standards and walking after dark is not a problem.
By the way, the nightlife in Djibouti City was surprisingly not bad at all. There are a few bars and nightclubs in the city center (around Place Menekil). Djibouti is a Muslim country but not as strict as Somalia for example. People walk around in shorts and alcohol is not forbidden. However, nightlife is as sleazy as the “spa” the hustler showed me in the afternoon.
At the end you can sum up my stay in Djibouti as killing time at 35 degrees and I was happy when I could leave the city again. In retrospect I should have paid the 500 dollars for a trip to Lake Abbé and Lake Assal, but in the end you’re always smarter.
Is Djibouti worth a visit?
Is it? Yes and no. Definitely no when you do the same thing as I did. My 62th country was one of the least spectacular. And definitely the least spectacular among all the other African countries I’ve been to.
In all fairness it has to be said that I have chosen the worst place in the whole country for my stay. And even here the opinions differ, because in the meantime I met many people who liked Djibouti City. Nevertheless, I claim that the country is especially worthwhile because of Lake Abbé and Lake Assal and one can do the capital at least for one day. In my opinion, every day more is a waste of time.
Will I ever come back to Djibouti? I don’t know. Lake Abbé and Lake Assal sound tempting, but I’m not sure if that’s why I’m going back to this tiny country. Anyway, I will remember Djibouti rather negatively because of its unspectacular capital, the underground hotel and the very high prices.
Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!
