This will be the last entry into our travelblog. More deathless prose. We decided to make the 6 hour drive to Lake Asal today, and arranged for an Embassy driver and vehicle to take us to the Tadjourah district. Lake Asal is a salt lake, and is the lowest point in Africa. It lies 153 meters (502 feet) below sea level. Surprisingly, the road to Lake Asal is in pretty good shape. There are spots where the road had been washed out (can't imagine when that happened since there hasn't been enough rain to wash out a road for a very [View Full Entry]

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Bon Jour, We are still here in Djibouti, and decided to have another tour around town (short tour). We are including pictures of some of the tour highlights. A bit of shopping was done at what passes as the local shopping mall (pictures included). Shopping is always an experience here, since we soon find that we are a very popular couple. It must be our outstanding personalities and appearance. The local vendors always swamp us, when we stroll around the shopping area. They all believe that they know exactly what we want, and that we should purchase it from them, at [View Full Entry]

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Another Day, another adventure. We decided to visit the local golf course today. So, off we went with an Embassy driver and vehicle, to find the Douda Golf Club. It was not only a challenge, but also an adventure. We drove towards the airport, but soon left that behind us as we motored towards the border between Djibouti and Somalia. We were being very attentive since we certainly didn't want to enter Somalia, on purpose or inadvertantly. We're sure that it would not be a pleasant experience. The road that we were traveling on, not one road sign mind you, was [View Full Entry]

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Greetings, Another day in Djibouti, and thankfully, the temperature has been reasonable. We are told that come the end of April and beginning of May, the temperatures will be on the way up. In June/July/August, the temperatures go up to 130. We had a bit of excitement a few days ago, when a French Aircraft Carrier came into Port Djibouti, along with a support ship. We had hoped to get a tour of the Aircraft Carrier, but we didn't have time to arrange it, since it only stayed in port for two days. There was a small demonstration in town by [View Full Entry]

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Hi All, We sure wish that we had discovered this blog thing while we were in Vienna. There was lots to report from there. It is a bit "quiet" here. We are continuing our walks along the seawall, which runs along Port Djibouti. The port is one of the main income sources for this country which a bit smaller than Massachusetts. I believe the population is less than 500,000. Actually, the port is impressive with its four huge craines that mainly unload conex containers. These containers are piled up to ten high, and take up acres and acres of space. Quite [View Full Entry]

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We have been taking a walk around town and the port area every day. Yesterday we took some pictures, and I am going to attempt to attach a couple to this blog. So far the temperature has been warm, but not hot. One of the Embassy drivers advised us that we were lucky, in that we would be gone before, or just after the hot season begins. This hot season usually begins the end of April/beginning of May. By hot season, they mean humid and 130 degrees. I guess that's what you can expect being so close to the equator and [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, We decided to visit Camp Lemonier, which is a US Military base on the outskirts of town. It is a joint base, in that there are Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force service personnel assigned there. It is a quasi permanent base, and one military fellow said that there are plans to make it a permanent base. That means barracks, and all the facilities that you would find at a up and running military complex. As of right now, the barracks consist of air conditioned tents, and a lot of temporary buildings. Of course we visited the Commissary and [View Full Entry]

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Well, Here we are in Djibouti, Djibouti. Not many countries that have a capitol city named after the country, or is it the other way around? We arrived here on 2 March after a 2 1/2 day trip from Washington, DC, and didn't travel over the international date line. We could have flown to Australia in less time. We will be adding pictures (hopefully) to the notes that I put in our travelblog, as soon as we feel more comfortable here. We are staying in the Bellevue Hotel, which is about a 10 minute drive from the American Embassy, where we [View Full Entry]

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