Hargeisa

There are mini gazelles and a giant tortoise that wander around the hotel. The hajjis stroll the gardens outside in circles like a pack of whirling dervishes.

Leaving Hargeisa I watched policemen pullover a nine year old for driving a steamroller the wrong direction on a one way street.

The city is full of khat stands and goats who eat the discarded leaves.

Berbera

In Berbera the Red Sea ate my GoPro. I spent the next 24 hours combing the beach. I only found a group of nomads bringing their herd of camels to the ocean for the evening.

Berbera is a fishing town and therefore populated by many, many cats.

The other guests at the hotel were refugees from Yemen, mostly families with small children.

The governor came in to the hotel restaurant for lunch one afternoon and shook my hand.

Burao

In Burao I received a Somali name: Roble, the one who brings the rains. A doctor gave it to me at a hospital we toured. It started raining very hard on the way back to Hargeisa as we drove up Sheikh mountain.

Our askari, who were traveling in a second vehicle, got two flat tires so we all pulled over. The guards decided to walk up the road in the fog while their vehicle was being repaired. They asked me to join them. We chewed khat until the truck was fixed and the driver came to pick us up.

The road to Hargeisa was closed due to flooding. We spent another night in Berbera. I went for a swim in the Red Sea. There was no one around except some crabs, a herd of camels, and a nice sunset.