Harar: Islamic Holy City Turns to Tourism

Travel Blog • Joanna Kakissis • 09.24.07 | 12:36 PM ET

The ancient city of Harar in Ethiopia may suffer chronic water shortages and a lack of modern amenities, but regional politicians are hoping to transform this hilltop city, a UNESCO World Heritage site, into a popular getaway for tourists, writes Anita Powell of the AP. With its walled maze of ancient mosques and alleyways, Harar has enough mystique to stir the imagination of adventurous travelers. The fourth-holiest city in Islam, it’s a center of the faith in the Horn of Africa. The French poet Arthur Rimbaud lived there in the late 1800s, and his home is now an art gallery. Harar is also known as the birthplace of coffee; its scent lingers in the Ethiopian highlands. And it’s also got “an old man who hand-feeds some 50 hyenas every night, treating them like obedient kittens,” Powell writes.

But “moving Harar into the future is an ambitious plan,” she says. The city, population 122,000, has only enough hotels to accommodate the 4,500 or so tourists who visit annually, and the nearest airport sits more than an hour’s drive away. The government is undeterred. Restaurants and hotels are going up, the city is investing in a water project, and an oil baron is considering plans to build Harar’s first luxury hotel.

Photo of Harar by Ahron de Leeuw, via Flickr (Creative Commons).