FROM ARDOUKOBA TO TADJOURAH

After leaving the volcano and joining the Unity Road, we head north towards Tadjourah. The ribbon of asphalt winds through tortured terrain. From an altitude of 50m, you go down to 32m below sea level, before going back up to over 200m. The landscape changes often. Black, yellow and beige rocks follow one another. The ground is bare or brightened up by clumps of light-coloured grass. These big dots of colour stand out on the black sand, are sometimes wandering and, when they cross the road, they remind us of those spaghetti western scenes, when the wind blows before a duel. As the road rises, we enjoy superb views of Lake Assal in the distance. Its white ice, its waters of various blues contrast with the sharp, dark and well-designed mountains that surround it. While we are still climbing, a bad track that goes towards the Day forest meets the road. We go down again and the N9 then joins the sea. The first village we meet is Sâgallou, a modest settlement of huts unevenly distributed around a small mosque. At the Assa Hougoub junction, a (good) road (N11) goes towards Randa and the Goda Mountains. On the right, the N9 leads to Tadjourah. Just before Tadjourah, you will notice a sudden change of vegetation. For a few kilometers, the road crosses an exceptionally green area (a very particular light green). These are actually shrubs of Chilean origin (it is said), which have somehow escaped from a park and have since invaded this area, choking the local shrubs, especially the acacias.

The arrival in Tadjourah, by Jean-François Deniau. In Tadjourah, the academician Jean-François Deniau (1928-2007), who owned a house in Ras Ali, near the White Sands, evokes the Djiboutian city in the very last pages of his novel. His vision of the small city from the sea is still relevant today:

"We saw the ochre and purple mountain ranges rise up before us where the primitive forest of the Day is hidden, then little by little the clumps of mimosa on the hills and the white city where Rimbaud spent a year organizing his arms caravan for the Negaus. A very short pier, the Catholic mission with its great Moorish palace arcades, a few palm heads, houses on the beach, the enclosure and the crenellated tower of the fort, two more minarets, the beach where the sambouks are fired. »