DJIBOUTI DAY 1

After spending an incredible couple of days in Salalah in Oman, staying at the arabian sea villas and being shown around by one of the most amazing tour guides we've ever met- Yousef from Sumahram Falcon tours (we're editing the next webisode now so keep your eyes out for it), we finally cleared all the customs and nonsense for the car and loaded it into a giant shipping container on it's way to Djibouti- thus avoiding Yemen as everyone had been seriously advising us to do. We then flew dirt cheap to the capital - Djibouti city, staying in the Sheraton Hotel as we wait the 4 days for the car. It's a very strange country from first impressions- very third world Africa with loads of German military wandering around (obviously on call for Yemen and the surrounding problem regions)but being a french colony we felt a relaxed, smiling francophone vibe added to the mix as we drove from the tiny airport in an old battered bluebird station wagon taxi, past 2nd hand flea markets bearing bright french signs of welcome, terrible smelling factories and crumbling suburbs. We are definitely in Africa.
If, like us, you have trouble placing Djibouti- it's a tiny tiny country just above Ethiopia, that most Visitors to East Africa often miss as it's more expensive than Ethiopia and if you're not a diver or snorkeller you might miss it altogether. The beaches seem muddy as opposed to sandy with loads of crabs and ravens scuttling across the sulphur smelling shore, but the diving promises to be AMAZING- swimming and snorkeling with whale sharks are promised and we've heard rumours of a huge salt lake that you can drive across. Apparently the nightlife and bar scene here, especially in the European quarter is massive so we'll check that out in the next couple of days and there's a huge following for the nations daily drug of choice here called Qat which arrives from Ethiopia every afternoon and puts everyone into a lazy stupor for the afternoon. Things definitely run on African time here and there is no rush for anything, but the Sheraton staff are lovely and putting up with my terrible french and martin's English with an attempted french accent ;-), the hotel is clean and relaxed and its definitely an exotic new country to ad to our list. pictures to follow x