Our Family's Year in Addis: The Land of Punt

We (the four of us and Brian) are just back from a short sojourn to Djibouti. Before moving to Ethiopia I was unaware that the country of Djibouti even existed. A bit embarrassing, as I previously thought of myself as someone with a reasonable working knowledge of the geography of Africa.

Djibouti is a tiny country that lies at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia.

In the 25^th century BC, the Djibouti area (along with other localities in the Horn) was part of the Land of Punt. The Puntites had economic ties with Ancient Egypt during the time of Queen Hatshepsut. They traded things like ebony, incense, short horned cattle (not sure what the issue was with long horned cattle).

In the late 19^th century Djibouti was colonized by France through various treaties with the Somali Sultans. It was then named French Somaliland. Independence from France was gained in 1977 and the country was renamed The Republic of Djibouti. Arabic and French are now the official languages.

Modern day Djibouti is basically a large French and American military base and also a large port. Land locked Ethiopia depends on the Djibouti port for transport of goods arriving by sea.

We didn’t actually go to Djibouti to learn about the very interesting history. We went to snorkel with whale sharks and float in the salty Lac Assal.

A little info about whale sharks and Lac Assal:

The whale shark is a big, vegetarian, filter feeding shark. It is the largest known fish species. According to Wikepedia the largest recorded whale shark was measured at 12.65 meters (41.50 feet) and weighed 21.5 m tons (47,000 lb). Quite exciting to swim next to one.

Lac Assal lies at 155 meters below sea level, which makes it the lowest point in Africa. It is also the second saltiest body of water in the world (the first saltiest is in Antarctica). Afar nomads extract salt from Lac Assal and long ago established the camel caravan routes into Ethiopia.