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Though not an internationally recognized country, Somaliland, in the north western section of Somalia, has been autonomous and fairly well run for 25 years. Though it is considered the safest part of Somalia to visit, it is still a “do not travel” zone.

Landing in the international airport in Hargeisa, I noticed a plane wrecked on the side of the runway. I was relieved our Jubba Air flight made it. Immigration involved filling a form and getting our visa acquired in Djibouti stamped.

With no hotel booked, we had a couple of choices in mind. Catching a taxi into town, we found that the Ambassador Hotel was right outside of the airport (walking distance). I went in to check it out while Chris waited with the taxi and our bags. The hotel seemed fine and even offered us a last minute rate of USD 60 for the night.

When trying to pay the taxi for what is essentially driving us outside of the airport, we got into an argument for the price. He wanted USD 15 which was the same rate as going across town. “No way.” The guy in the passenger seat came out as he saw we were arguing and helped translate. At one point the driver started pointing with all his fingers inches from my face and yelling. “Hey respect. Talk with respect.” I calmly demanded. And the other guy, who turned out to be a passenger, translated and the driver immediately lowered his head and felt ashamed. I understood he lost his place in the taxi line, so we settled on USD 10.

The hotel had some serious security. We had our bags completely rummaged through twice by AK-47 toting guards before we even made it to the lobby. The facilities were quite good especially given that we were in Somaliland.

In the evening we arranged a car through the hotel to take us to dinner and to explore Hargeisa by night.

Our driver was a young soft-spoken guy in his early twenties. He purchased his own car and works primarily for the hotel. We asked for local food, so for dinner he took us to a cafe that he often visits.

We opted to sit outside to people watch, but found that as the only foreigners in the area, we were the people to be watched. Though we felt the stares, the area seemed quite secure with armed military and police patrolling the streets.

After dinner we asked the driver where we could get some camel milk. He knew exactly were to go. He parked in this dirt lot and pointed to a door. We walked in and the sellers and customers all stared at us as if we were lost. They asked if we were from the military. We bought a bag of milk for about a dollar which was poured out of thermoses and through funnels. It was still warm.

Then the driver recommended a very “funny” place. After a twenty minute drive we arrived at Summertime a kind of restaurant, lounge, and dance hall. We walked into the dance hall to find a throne in the middle of the stage and two groups of women seated on the large round side-tables. Across the room was a table with three guys singing karaoke to a song while the women seemed to listen. No dancing whatsoever in this dance hall.

The driver also took us by the War Memorial featuring a MiG 17 from the Somali Air Force. We stopped at a random mall that was still open to have a look. It had three floors of clothing stores with some ripping off brand names like Gucci.

Back at the hotel, we went to the restaurant for some Somali tea and cake. Of course, we also wanted to try the fresh camel milk which tasted like milk that was soaked in cut grass for a couple of days. Quite disgusting…

In the morning after a basic breakfast, we met with the hotel manager to book our tour to Laas Geel. He broke down the pricing which included park entrance (USD 20 pp), an armed guard each as required by the local government (USD 20 pp) and the car with driver. After a brief negotiation we secured the tour for USD 185 total.

We thanked him, shook hands, and checked out of the hotel, leaving our bags behind.

Laas Geel Tour

It only took about 20 minutes for the car to arrive. We met our guards who seemed to be active soldiers sporting AK-47s and the driver who was calling the shots. They weren’t overly friendly but obliged and took us to a shop were we could buy Somaliland tourist shirts that were freshly printed.

Shirts on, we headed for about two hours out of town. The first section was straight forward on a somewhat empty main road with several police checkpoints which we breezed by when our guards yelled something out of the window. Once we left the chaotic city center, the surrounding area was very sparse and undeveloped. We passed villages and a couple of humanitarian projects.

Eventually we turned off the main road at a sign stating “WELL COME Laas Geel” and onto a dirt road. This barren area was almost like a mini safari where we saw birds, antelope and even a baboon.

We arrived at a small shack where two guys were laying down in the shade of the porch. 

The driver introduced us and then started bargaining on the price of the entry ticket. We already paid, but to hasten the process, we put in another USD 5.

Our guards then led us up the hill with their AK-47s slung over their shoulders. The cave paintings that date back to 9,000 – 3,000 B.C. were impressively well maintained and clear. There were many figures of cows, goats, dogs, and herders. We were surprised to learn that they were only recently discovered by French researchers in 2002.

Eventually the two guys and our driver also came up the hill. Our guards took selfies and pictures of the landscape with their smart phones. Then we took the opportunity to get some photos together.

After visiting several covered areas with similar paintings, we returned to the shack, which the caretaker opened to reveal a small museum with descriptive posters.

Then we waited as the driver and guards washed themselves in the sand and prayed to Mecca.

On the way back we made a stop for coffee. The small roadside villager seemed to pause to curiously watch us as we took pictures and played with their goats. Then all of a sudden the guards yelled “China” and pointed toward a pickup truck stopped on the side of the road. A disheveled Chinese guy and a local kid smiled at me when I walked over to greet them. He told me a bit of his story in a strongly accented Mandarin about how he has been running a factory for 8 years and how difficult it was. He made a point to mention that there were no Chinese, which may be why he was interested in speaking with me. He thought we were here to do an inspection for an investment, like another group he met earlier. He was very friendly and gave me his phone number in case I needed anything. My guard was hovering over my shoulder at this point as if to make sure he wasn’t going to kidnap me.

On the way back we dropped off the soldiers one by one, before going back to the hotel to get our bags. We headed to the airport for our flight to Ethiopia.

The international airport of course had several layers of security. At the second point, we were stopped for our souvenir gems from Djibouti which apparently we couldn’t bring out of the country. We explained where we bought them from and even had to show proof by going through pictures on our iPhone which had a date and location stamp. Eventually after dealing with two levels of management, we were allowed to pass. Our ridiculous Somaliland tourist shirts may have played a role.

Everyone laughed and loved the fact that were were wearing their country’s shirt. In fact at the immigration line, a “very rich” officer who owned over 100 camels, said he would gift a camel to Chris on his next visit.

We went through a final security check where our bags were completely rummaged through, but at that point the entire staff at the airport seemed to know us so it was quite painless.

We boarded our Ethiopian Airlines flight and were on our way to Addis Ababa!