Djibouti Djibouti
Djibouti
Frequently Asked Questions
At the commercial port, one of the busiest in the Horn of Africa, a short distance from the city centre. The trip downtown is by taxi or chartered coach: this is not a call where you walk out of the gate.
The call is worth less for the city than for the almost unreal landscapes that begin at its door. The headline excursion runs to Lake Assal, about two hours west by road. On the way back there is often an hour left for 27 June Square and the central market.
The lowest point on the African continent, 155 metres below sea level, and one of the saltiest bodies of water on earth — saltier still than the Dead Sea. A turquoise sheet ringed by a dazzling crust of salt, against a backdrop of dark volcanoes. You walk on the white crust where Afar caravans have come to harvest salt for centuries.
About two hours each way from the port. It therefore needs a long call and an organised excursion. The drive itself justifies the trip: the road follows the Gulf of Goubet, a deep steep-sided inlet, then crosses lava fields where the 1978 flows still trace their frozen waves.
Because the country sits at one of the meeting points of three tectonic plates. That vast pulling apart has strewn the territory with volcanoes, salt lakes and plains of black basalt. In this rift valley, Africa and Arabia move apart by a few centimetres each century.
In the winter months, yes: young whale sharks come to feed in the waters of the Gulf of Tadjoura, and boat trips let you snorkel near the world's largest fish, a harmless plankton eater. The rest of the year, Moucha Island and its reefs offer a fine interlude of sand and coral.
French and Arabic are the official languages — French appears on shopfronts and is readily exchanged with traders, a welcome rarity for a French-speaking traveller. Afar and Somali are also heard daily.
The Djiboutian franc. US dollars and euros are sometimes accepted in businesses used to visitors, but bring local cash for the central market and taxis. Cards are far from universally accepted.
October to April, when the heat becomes bearable again. The rest of the year it sets the pace from morning onwards and makes rift excursions punishing. Hat, water and covering clothes in any season.
27 June Square, lined with whitewashed arcades, and the aisles of the central market where spices, fabrics and branches of khat change hands. The minarets of the Hamoudi Mosque, the capital's oldest, rise above the old quarter's rooftops and make a handy landmark for walkers.
