The Destination
From the Coral Lanes of Hamar Weyne to the Salt Floor of Lac Assal
Mogadishu, Merca and Barawa were working Indian Ocean ports for more than a thousand years, moving gold, ivory, frankincense and cloth between Africa, Arabia and Persia. Ibn Battuta counted Mogadishu among the great cities of his age. Hamar Weyne, the old quarter, is what remains of that town: narrow lanes built of coral stone.
The city is rebuilding, slowly and carefully, and very few outsiders see it. We go with local partners who plan the routes and the timings: through Hamar Weyne, past the rebuilt monuments, to the fish market as the catch comes off the boats, then down to Liido Beach. On a Friday it can look as if half of Mogadishu is in the water. None of this is easy to arrange, and that's the main reason so few people have done it.
A short regional flight then takes you to Djibouti, which sits where three tectonic plates are pulling apart under the Afar desert. The ground between them has cracked into black lava fields and salt lakes. Juvenile whale sharks feed in the plankton of the Gulf of Tadjoura, and Lac Assal lies 155 metres below sea level inside a ring of white salt, the saltiest open water in Africa. Four days, two capitals, and a coastline where a new ocean is slowly opening.
"Yellowfin tuna coming off the boats in Mogadishu on day one. A full day on the Gulf of Tadjoura looking for whale sharks on day three. The salt crust of Lac Assal underfoot before the flight home."
