After having changed to a hopefully more quite room, we want to walk around in old Harar without a guide.
We start with a visit of the Rimbaud museum.
Arthur Rimbaud was a French adventurer and poet who stayed in Harar several times for quite a while, once as a merchant. He is also said to have lived with an Abyssinian woman for half a year. But generally he probably was gay, and had a tense relationship with the poet Verlaine…
The house is hard to find in the grid of narrow cobbled lanes and places. A man with short white hair asks us, where we want to go. He introduces himself as Ahmed, a sport reporter of the local radio. He is very sad that Germany was out of the game in Russia. Against Argentina or Spain – yes. But not against South Korea!
He shows us to the museum, which unfortunately doesn’t have any guide. Nevertheless, we admire the collection of books, but the most important things are reproductions of historical photos, many of them taken by Rimbaud himself. You can see Harar in the middle of the 19th century.
Rimbaud organised even a caravan, in order to bring weapons to Menelik II. All in all, his changing life was rather tragic. He died with 37 years after a amputation of a leg.
We walk on another four kilometres, wander through little alleys and places and finally reach the the central square, called by the Hararis “Chalanko”, after the place nearby, where Menelik II defeated the last Ras (Head) of Harar. That was the end of the independent trade city of Harar – it became part of Ethiopia.
From the terrace of Cafe Negeyo you have a wonderful view over the square, now called in the maps “Feres Megala”. It’s also a good place to take picture without being seen…
Having a coffee and a coke, the owner of the coffee shop explains us the history of the square and a singer at the neighbouring table sells us his CD – and sings some tunes of the song “Medicine – Medicine – for Harar”…
We spend the rest of the day arranging things in our new room. In the evening, we have dinner at Ras Hotel – another recommendation. We had again Injera – Annette takes the vegetarian version and Wendelin the chicken one…
