Travelling is my biggest passion. I try to spend every day of my vacation time (unfortunately, limited to 26 days a year) travelling. I travel mostly with my family and sometimes solo. I love going to remote places and always plan visiting as many WH sites as possible. Although sometimes they are not rewarding, in most cases visiting WHS gives me much better understanding of the region I visit.

I find this site very helpful in planning my trips to more difficult WHS and want to share my reviews especially on rarely visited ones.

Site visited in May 2018, during extremely hot weather, which might have influenced my opinion about the capital of Djibouti. And unfortunately I cannot say many positive things about Djibouti ville. The capital is in fact ugly and disorganized, despite the fact, that the whole country is not that poor (it is very expensive even for Westerners). Goats and sheep can be seen even in the very center of the city. The historical buildings are generally in very bad condition, except a few those used by government or municipality. The description of this TWHS mentions those nice ones, like Presidential Palace or City Hall, but if you go to the main square, called la Place du 27 Juin, you will see almost nothing but mess. It is even difficult to recognize colonial heritage of the city, as historical buildings are surrounded by newer ones, without any visual integrity. The best summary of so-called “cultural landscape” of Djibouti city is the fact that it is one of few capitals that don’t have ANY museums.

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Djibouti is not known in the world as a tourist destination, although it does not mean that there are no attractions. The country is small but fairly diverse, and has beaches, quite high mountains (with the highest peak exceeding 2000 meters above sea level), near which lies the lowest point of Africa (153 m below sea level) deserts, lakes and even a piece of forest (protected within the National Park Forêt du Day). As all of the countries in the Red Sea, there are also good diving spots. Djibouti has no WHS, although it is possible that this will soon change - the country wants to propose for the biggest tourist attraction - Lake Assal, which was my only trip outside the capital of Djibouti.

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From the perspective of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, the town of Tarrafal is located exactly on the opposite side of the island of Santiago. Although the distance is only 60 kilometers, it can take as long as 1.5h by car and even up to 3h by minibus, called here aluguer. We chose the latter, adding to the adventure. You have to ask the driver to stop near the camp, which is in the outskirts of the town of Tarrafal, near the main road.

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It seems Cape Verde is not a very popular country in this community. It is not surprising since there is only one World Heritage Site and chances for the inscription of the second one (Tarrafal) are vague. But if you do not follow typical beach vacation on Sal or Boa Vista, there is a lot to see and there is a surprising variety of landscapes in this small country. 

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The island of Fogo is quite small, but it has the highest peak of Cape Verde, active volcano Pico de Fogo. The volcano and its surroundings (with natural boundaries of its caldera) are protected as a national park. Although the landscape is moonscape-like and, at least at the first glance, not friendly, due to mild climate and rich soil people always lived in the caldera, planting coffee and grapewine. They even developed original rounded houses, made from volcanic materials and called funco. Unfortunately, happy life in the caldera is frequently interrupted by eruptions of smaller peak of Fogo (Pico Pequeno). The last one took place in 2014 and lasted for four months. It was very slow so people had time to leave the village taking everything valuable. Although almost all buildings were covered with lava and destroyed, immediately after the eruption the inhabitants came back and started constructing new houses, literally “level up”, on top of the remnants of old ones. The landscape of the village and surroundings is really outstanding and one of the most memorable ones in Cape Verde. It is also one of the best examples of human adaptation to difficult conditions near volcanoes. If caboverdian government emphasizes this cultural aspect, I would cheer them on success of the nomination as a WHS.

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