Haha, I was in Djibouti!

When I found out I was moving to Ethiopia, I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a travel book on the region. It covered Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. While I mostly stuck to the Ethiopia parts, I did flip through to see what the region had to offer. When looking through the Djibouti section, I learn there are tours to swim with whale sharks in the country. The more research I did, the more I realized, Djibouti is the only place in the world where you’re pretty much guaranteed to see them if you come from November to February.

I am not quite sure when it happened, but at some point, swimming with whale sharks became a lifelong goal of mine. For years, every time I saw a photo of one of these beasts, I became mesmerized. They are sharks the size of a school bus. If they were so inclined, they could swallow a person whole. Yet they simply swim majestically through the water snacking on plankton and pose no threat to humans. If I had a bucket list, swimming with whale sharks would have been on the top.

When I went home to America for a visit last summer, I threw the idea out to my dad in passing. While he is an avid SCUBA diver and adventurous spirit, this would mean a second trip to Africa since he was already coming with my mom to see Asella and visit Tanzania. He was much more interested in the idea than I expected. Unbelievably, the plans became set. He bought his ticket and we were going to Djibouti.

The trip was a highlight of my service and one of the coolest weeks of my life. The whale sharks were amazing. Everything I had hoped for and more. I could talk about being in the water with those sharks for an hour. If you’re interested, next time you see me, just get me started. But make sure you have nothing planned for the next hour or two. More than that, it was great to spend a week with my dad. Having three siblings, Norm and I have never had an opportunity like this- spending a week together, just the two of us. We spent hours talking and getting to know a different side of each other. I am forever grateful to Norm for not only giving me the chance to fulfill a dream but also, flying halfway across the world to simply spend time hanging out with me.

What follows is my dad’s account of the trip. While I could explain it, I thought it would be unique to read about the experience through his eye. This was his first time in Africa and everything was new to him. I added some pictures but, I give you, Stormin’ Norman’s recap of his first trip to Africa:

My experience in Africa began with arrival in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on a Sunday morning.  I got off the plane and walked through the airport to buy my visa and pick up my check-in luggage (78 pounds full of good stuff for Laura and her Peace Corps Volunteer – PCV - friends).  When I got to the luggage carrousel, I looked toward the front of the airport and I spotted a head of brown hair standing out in a group of Ethiopians.  I never realized that Laura was that tall.  I then looked around the luggage carrousel.  I was the “giant white guy”.  At 6-3, I was a good foot taller than most of the other people gathering their luggage.   At about 5-9 or 5-10, Laura is tall, but in the crowd of Ethiopians, she appeared to be much taller.  So began my journey to Addis, Djibouti and eventually back to Addis.

The next milestone of my trip was watching Laura interact with the people of Ethiopia in their native language of Amharic.  From the airport, we needed to take a cab to the hotel (Bole Rock).  Laura began bartering with the cab drivers.  Many years ago, Laura asked me to take her car into Jiffy Lube for an oil change because she did not want to deal with the mechanics.  This was not the same Laura.  She walked away from one cabbie when he would not meet her price.  She ended up successfully negotiating her target price with a different driver.  I use the cab experience at the airport as the example, but throughout my visit, Laura was the negotiator.  Whenever we hit a snag during the trip, she stepped up and worked through the issue, almost every time on her terms and when not on her terms, the deal always favored her position. 

After Laura and I spent a few hours in Addis, we were back at the airport to head for Djibouti.  After the 13-hour flight from DC to Addis, consuming several adult beverages on the flight and stepping into an 8-hour time change from DC, I slept through most of the flight to Djibouti.  When we arrived, I got to see her use her Amharic again to negotiate the cab price to a driver speaking Arabic.  She won again. 

When we boarded the cab to travel to our hotel – a Sheraton – night had fallen.  As we were driving, I noticed that the buildings were surrounded by 8 to 10-foot block walls with razor wire on the top.   As we proceeded, I noticed that the walls had k-rails (the barriers used to divide freeways in Southern California) strategically placed at the entrances.  When we arrived at the hotel the driver dropped us off about 100 feet from the parking lot entrance.  As we walked to the entrance, we passed a uniformed guard, carrying an AK-47.  We got to the guardhouse at the entrance to the parking lot and there were two more armed guards.  Sitting in the guardhouse was beveled mirror on a six-foot pole that was likely used to check the underside of vehicles for “unstable attachments”.   We arrived at the hotel entrance and passed through the metal detector to get to into the lobby.  When we got to the room, it was a typical Sheraton hotel room.

The next morning we decided that we would go to the “high-end hotel” to book our whale shark snorkel and my SCUBA diving.  We left the Sheraton by taxi for the other hotel, passing many facilities surrounded by high walls, razor wire and k-rails.  At the entrance to the high-end hotel, there was a guardhouse with armed guards similar to the Sheraton, but inside the gate there were staggered k-rails.  I assume that they were placed so that any unwanted intruder would need to slow down to get around them giving the guards an opportunity to use their AK-47’s to motivate them to stop.

After we booked the whale shark swim and the dive, we headed to another hotel to change a reservation that I had made but needed to cancel.  We decided to walk.  There were not many people on the street in that area, but we definitely stood out.  It caused me to remember the scene from an Indiana Jones movie when Marcus was trying to blend-in on the street of Cairo.  Despite the high security and that we were oddities to the rest of the population, I never felt threatened or that we were in an unsafe situation.

It turned out that our hotel was in an area where a lot of foreign embassies were located.  Djibouti is across the Red Sea from Yemen, north of Somalia (home of the pirates featured in the Captain Phillips movie) and south of Eritrea (a country with a terrible history for violating human rights).  The part of the world dictated the security precautions and not the people of Djibouti.  Our experience with the people of Djibouti was great.

For dinner on day one, we ate at the restaurant in the Sheraton.  It was an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I realized the value of food to the Peace Corp Volunteer.  Laura was in heaven with the variety of food provided, especially the cheeses.  The next morning, we had the breakfast buffet.  There were many foods that Laura had been missing, including bacon and apples.  The rest of breakfasts and dinners in Djibouti were spent at the Sheraton Buffet.

On day two in Djibouti, we decided to go to the downtown area.  After a 20-minute ride, the cab dropped us off on the main business street.  We walked around the business district, including the market area for the next couple of hours.  There were a lot of smaller shops in the business district that sold a wide variety of goods.  Similarly in the market area, you could buy anything from electronics, to luggage to soap for washing clothing, to fruits and veggies.  There were many people on the streets in the area.  We were the only non-Africans that I observed.  Laura was only one of three adult women who I noticed that did not have a head/hair covering.  There was not alcohol being sold.  The only signs of alcohol I observed in the down town area were a crushed beer can in the street and the “Scotch Club”, which appeared to be a bar/club that was closed for remodeling.

Every day we were in Djibouti, we spent time in the Sheraton pool.  It was nice to swim a little and then sit by the pool and read.  There were alcoholic beverages sold at the Sheraton.  We sampled all of the African beers.  Staying at the hotel were military personnel from Germany and from France.  They also spent time at the pool.

In the evenings, we went into the bar.  An Asian musical group played a very wide variety of music, including tunes from Santana.  Laura and I (Americans) were in a bar in Djibouti, Africa, listening to an Asian band that was singing in Spanish, surrounded by people from Germany and France.

Day three was the swim with the whale sharks.  To try to describe the experience does not give it justice.  Laura and I were in the water with 20-foot long whale sharks.  At first there were one or two.  After a few minutes, we were surrounded.  Whale sharks feed on plankton and can get over 40 feet long.  We were near the shore line and the whale sharks we swam with were in the 15 to 25 foot range; however, after the swim, as the boat moved away from the shore, we saw a few that had to be at least 30 feet long.   

Norm with a shark. At 6'3 and his arms outstretched, I think it is clear our estimate of 20 feet long may have been conservative. They were huge, that is the takeaway...

Some of the best snorkeling I've ever experienced. The reef was pristine and the fish didn't even know to be afraid of us. 

Day four was my SCUBA dive.  I took a boat from Djibouti to a small island.  The dive boat departed from the island.  It was a good dive.  The water temperature was in the 70’s.  Visibility was fairly good – not Caribbean great, but far better than diving off the coast of California.  We saw coral and a lot of topical fish.

On day five, we hung out around the hotel.  The following day, we flew out of Djibouti, returning to Addis.  Over 2-1/2 day in Addis, we stopped at a street shop for Ethiopian coffee.  It was the first coffee that I had in over 10 years.  It was very good.  We visited the St. George’s Brewery and drank beer.  We went to one the Ethiopian history museums. 

On the street of Addis, there are shops with a side of beef being displayed.  You are able to pick the cut of meat as well as the amount.  The vendor then cuts the beef as requested and cooks it.  It is brought to your table in small pre-cut pieces on a small charcoal grill.  It is served with bread and injera (a thin, spongy, Ethiopia bread).  The beef is eaten by using the injera or regular bread to pick up the small cuts of beef.  We ordered beer to wash it down.  Unlike Djibouti in which the primary religion is by far Islamic, Addis contains more of a mixture of religions.  Alcohol (beer) is much more available in restaurants and the majority of the women do not wear head/hair covering.

We ate a couple meals at the Bole Rock restaurant/bar.  Whenever we stopped in at the restaurant, at least one of the two televisions was tuned into soccer – either the British Premier Football or African Soccer games.   The games that we saw were rebroadcasts; however, Laura told me that whenever the games are on live, the place is packed.

I left Ethiopia in the middle of December, knowing I would be returning in about seven weeks, when Janet and I would be flying in to visit Laura again.  On that trip we would see her town (Asella), travel to Tanzania to go on Safari and then on to Zanzibar.  However, it did not make leaving any easier. 

I very much enjoyed the time that I was able to spend with Laura.  Addis and Djibouti were so different than the United States.  It made me appreciate the transition that Laura had to make going from America to Ethiopia and the transition that she will have to make when she returns to the US and has to readapt to life in America. 

It’s official, I come home August 4, 2014!