Somaliland’s largest town has a dusty low-rise feel more in line with a provincial administrative center than a national capital.
There’s just one embassy in Hargeisa, few familiar airlines are represented, and other well-known international brands – be it McDonald’s, Barclays, or Hilton – are conspicuous by their collective absence.
There are no trendy nightspots or sushi bars in Somaliland’s capital, no neon lights or overhead passes, no five-star hotels or flash tour operators, nor any cinemas or theatres.
Suffice to say that if cosmopolitan airs and transatlantic comforts feature highly on your list of travel priorities, humble little Hargeisa is bound to disappoint.
Therein lies much of Hargeisa’s low-key charm. Rebuilt and resurrected from the ashes of the recent war, this is a very pragmatic, take-me-as-I-am kind of city, one whose down-to-earth character and lack of architectural pomposity is epitomized by the use of a crashed MiG fighter jet as the centerpiece of its most important Civil War Memorial.
Similarly, government offices in Hargeisa tend to be plainly decorated and informally signposted, and in most cases, they effectively close shop at noon, after which the obligatory midday siesta morphs into an afternoon khat-chewing session.
Indeed, the ubiquitous obsession with chewing this mildly narcotic leaf every street corner seemingly has its own gives Hargeisa a mild and rather likable aura of decadence, one at odds with the stuffy images that many outsiders associate with Islamic Africa.
Overwhelmingly friendly and practically free of crime, Hargeisa in many respects feels more like an extension of the surrounding countryside than a proper urban conglomeration.
Goats and sheep wander through the suburbs, resting up wherever they find a sliver of shade, donkey carts jostle for road space with taxis and minibusses, and most men and practically all women dress traditionally in colorful flowing cloths.
As is so often the case in small-town Africa, locals regularly stop you to ask your nationality and make small talk. Seldom, however, do such approaches appear to be motivated by anything other than plain curiosity – and, perhaps, the pleasurable implicit affirmation of nationhood associated with the presence of foreigners (who are often, and favorably, assumed to be journalists rather than tourists).