SoPauliland

So let's start with the facts: Technically Somaliland is still a part of Somalia, but it declared independence after the civil war back in 1991, has it's own government, constituion and currency, however it has not yet been recognised as an indepent state by any other country or organisation so until then will have to make do being grouped in with Puntland and Somalia as one official country. Out of these three autonomous regions though Somaliland is by far the safest and most stable at the moment.
After getting settled down in Hargeisa, we walked around the busy streets lined with stalls either selling bushes of the mild drug khat or fat wads of the local currency Shilling. After exchanging about a kilos worth of banknotes, our next mission was to aquire all the necessary permits, personell and papers needed to be able to move around the country. First we visited the Tourist Ministry where we after alot of haggeling managed to get access to the sight of Laas Geel, that was followed by a visit to the Police HQ where we were granted permission to travel freely between the capital and certain destinations without armed guards, our last task was to find a driver and a car who could fit five tourists and an armed guard. We managed to get everything sorted without too much hassle, and after two days in the capital we could move on north. Our first stop was Laas Geel, a desert landscape with a number of caves containing some very well preserved cave paintings from an unknown era depicting different animals (mostly cows) and humans, and suprisingly the colours are still very vivid. After this our driver drove us to the coastal town of Berbera, where we could also dismiss our private bodyguard. Berbera was a busy fishing harbour once upon a time, but today it's a dormant porttown with a small market and a few shipwrecks in the dock. A short walk from town there is a pristine sandbeach which stretches for miles and there isn't another person as far as even binoculars could see. We stayed in Berbera for three days soaking up the sun (perhaps a bit too much) tasty fish, tea and juices then got a taxi back to the capital. Here we got stuck into more of the paperwork, first getting permission to leave the country and then getting a new visa for Ethiopia, this also worked out after a bit of struggle and with any luck we should be arriving back in Harar, Ethiopia before sundown tomorrow. Somaliland turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, and to be honest up until about a week ago it wasn't really on my radar for this trip. We got the odd stone thrown at us, some insults hurled our way and the occasional deaththreat slipped under our door, but in general all people we encountered were friendly, genuinly happy to see tourists in their country and interested in where we came from. I never felt unsafe during my time here, and you know you're in a fairly safe place when people pile up huge stacks of money on the side of the street without any fear of being robbed. But now the time has come to leave this "country" in order to do so successfully though I need to catch 40 winks.