Travel here largely remains a good option. Harar is a friendly medieval walled city in the mountains, one of the holiest in the Islamic world, with a myriad of mosques and an old city with narrow alleyways that mean it is free of motorized traffic. Dire Dawa, which has the airport and is a 40-minute drive away, by contrast, is a lowland town with wide tree-lined avenues, a curious French-built railway station, and a busy market.

Visitors to Harar can also take an excursion to Babile to see the camel market (twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays) and to the Elephant Sanctuary (not a sure sight), as well as several other excursions, but most people will see the hyenas fed on the edge of the city each night. This brings me to the question of security. Apart from the unsettling feeling of being right next to an apex predator whose jaws can crush bones, the Harar area is secure, although we will need to check on the current situation around Babile as there can be ethnic issues in that area, as it falls on the Somali/Oromo border.