Andrew and I had a much-needed good sleep-in this morning, with the alarm set for a very late 8:00 am. Friday is a weekly day of rest in Djibouti, being the Muslim holy day. After a basic but enjoyable buffet breakfast at our hotel and a luke-warm, low- pressure shower, we decided to spend our morning exploring the city centre of Djibouti, including the ‘Marché Central’ (Central Market). We knew that everything would be less busy than on other days of the week, but this would be our only opportunity to see the area as we had to fly out in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, like everywhere else in Djibouti, our hotel had no maps. That must be a long-term problem throughout Djibouti, because even our guidebook contained no map of Djibouti City and offered no useful suggestion where to obtain one. No matter; the helpful staff at the hotel gave me a description and a sketch map of the way we should walk to the city centre.
Actually, there was a small problem – the map bore no relationship to the pattern of the streets, and the description sent us entirely in the wrong direction. Fortunately, Djibouti is quite small, and having realised that we were in the wrong area (i.e. the shipping port), we caught a minibus into the city centre. I guess we were also fortunate that the weather was cooler today because of some thin cloud cover – the temperature during our walk was ‘just’ 41 degrees, which was certainly enough to work up a sweat, but which was nonetheless bearable.
The centre of Djibouti was certainly a quiet, sleepy place today. Nearly every shop was closed, and the almost empty streets contained just a few largely aimless pedestrians (like us) plus a number of people reclining on deck chairs enjoying the morning sun.
We found the Marché Central just a few blocks away from the city centre. The market was vibrant rather than chaotic as it apparently is on the other days of the week. One section contained fruit and vegetable sellers, with a smaller section selling meat (but not pork) off to one side. Across the street, a larger area contained a mix of stalls selling electronic goods, shoes, clothes and household products, all interspersed in a confusing mix with minibus stops and waiting areas. At one side of this zone, a street of souvenir stalls offered a wide array of masks, carvings and T-shirts, very few of which actually seemed to have originated in Djibouti.
It did not take us very long to explore every street in central Djibouti quite thoroughly, and after being out for about two and a half hours we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel, where it was time to cool off, shower, change and depart for the airport to begin the long journey home to Hong Kong.
