With our Nissan XTERRA in a shipping container on its way from Oman to Djibouti so we could avoid Yemen
there was nothing else that we could do except hop on a plane to Djibouti to wait for our car to arrive.
After checking into the Sheraton Hotel we headed to Le Lagon Bleu.
It's a dive shop in Djibouti and they also take you out looking for whale sharks famous in this area.
Unfortunately we're a couple of weeks before the season but we did have some friendly visitors decide to pop by.
We've travelled about an hour outside of Djibouti and we're surrounded by 50 dolphins.
They're apparently very shy in this area so you can't go swimming with them
and as soon as you make a noise they kind of go deep underneath the surface.
But it's incredible to just watch them swimming around the boat.
We've just travelled about 30 minutes from Djibouti city to Il Demusha or Musha Island
which is famous for its diving.
So we're here for the night and we're going to go do a couple of dives around the area
which is apparently beautiful diving and it seems to be where all the military forces come to party
on their days off, the Marines, the Army, the National Guard.
So we've just been on a big boat with all of them coming here.
We're going to go do a couple of dives and then party it up with the military.
It's all good.
Unfortunately the military had different plans and didn't want to party with us.
Djibouti is mainly used as a military base to guard the Gulf of Aden from pirates
so being a tourist there is quite a complicated procedure.
So the next day we hired a guide and a card to go explore the sights and sounds of this tiny country.
So we've travelled a couple of hours from Djibouti city
and ended up on the way to Ethiopia.
It's the lowest point in all of Africa and apparently it's saltier than the Dead Sea.
You can't swim in it because three quarters of your body mass are floating above the surface of the water
and what looks like a beach behind me is actually salt that's collected on the edges.
It's the start of the salt caravan so it's where they come and harvest the salt and take it all over the world.
How weird is this?
Hey?
Djibouti and Iceland are the only two places in the world where the Earth's mantle is at its thinnest of 20 km
so the inner core of the Earth with all the hot magma and lava is closer here to the surface than anywhere else in the world
and because of the area around being so volcanic there's quite a few hot springs where the water is literally...
it's hotter than a bar. You couldn't swim in there even if you wanted to.
So after spending 10 days in Djibouti waiting for our car to clear customs, it's finally arrived.
A massive thank you to the Sheraton Djibouti who put up with us for 10 days as we wait for the car.
So we're sitting at their pool right now having one final drink, a little bit of a party tonight
and then we're off on the next bit of the adventure. It's all good.
