Dikhil: the south-west region, sites and itineraries

Where is the Dikhil region?

The Dikhil region occupies the south-west of Djibouti. It is bordered by the Tadjourah region to the north-east, the Arta region to the east and the Ali-Sabieh region to the east-south-east. To the west and south it runs up against the Ethiopian border, facing the Afar and Somali regions. Its capital, the town of Dikhil, lies in the west of the country, about ten kilometres from Ethiopia.

The region is the largest of the country’s six, and the most varied. It holds at once a historic town, a cross-border salt depression, a semi-desert plain and several major prehistoric sites. It is also the region where distance makes itself felt most: the sites do not follow one another, they have to be earned.

The town of Dikhil is crossed by the Chekkeyti wadi — also written Chekheyti —, which drains the Oukoula plateaux and flows north towards the Hanlé graben. It grew up as the seat of the Afar sultanate of Goba’ad: the sultan Hummad Lo’oyta signed there, on 11 March 1862, the first treaty of friendship binding it to France. In the Middle Ages, the region belonged to the sultanates of Ifat and Adal.

A frequent confusion: Balho

Balho is sometimes attached to the Dikhil region. That is a mistake. The village of Balho lies in the Tadjourah region, on national highway 11 which links Tadjourah to the Ethiopian border, about thirty kilometres west of Dorra. The likely origin of the confusion is a sentence on the Wikipedia page devoted to the Dikhil region, where a burial mound at Balho is mentioned — but in a paragraph dealing with the cairns found throughout the country, not with a site of Dikhil. See the Balho page if that village is what you are looking for.

What is there to see in the Dikhil region?

Destination	What you find there	Access	Page
Lake Abbe	Cross-border salt lake, limestone chimneys, bivouac	Track, 4×4 essential	Lake Abbe page
Grand Bara	Semi-desert plain, rock engravings, land sailing	Road then track	Grand Bara page
Handoga	Settlement of circular stone houses, near the Chekkeyti wadi	Track, with a guide	Dalmar catalogue
Town of Dikhil	Historic capital, Chekkeyti wadi, starting point	National highway 1	—

Lake Abbe concentrates most of the catalogue’s offer for the region: it alone justifies a two-day trip, and the page devoted to it details its geology, its bivouac and its season.

The Grand Bara is catalogued both in the Dikhil region and in that of Ali-Sabieh: the plain stretches across both sides of their administrative boundary, and the Dalmar catalogue carries two records of it, one per region. In practice, it is reached from either side.

Handoga is the third catalogued site. It lies near the Chekkeyti wadi, south-west of Dikhil: a settlement of about a hundred circular houses in dressed stone, dated to 4000 to 3000 BCE. The excavations carried out from 1986 pushed the occupation of the area back to the third or fourth millennium BCE.

What do the archaeological sites of Dikhil tell us?

This is probably what most clearly sets the region apart from the seaside circuits of the north: it gathers several of the country’s documented prehistoric sites, the main ones being the following.

Site	What has been found there	Published dating
Handoga	About a hundred circular houses in dressed stone	4000 to 3000 BCE
Asa Koma	Burial, decorated pottery, beads, obsidian and bone tools	End of the third millennium
Asa Ragid	Oyster shells, circular stone structures, microlithic industry	Up to 5000-5800 BCE
Anabo Koma	Pleistocene fauna fossils	Pleistocene
Chekeyti-3	Hippopotamus bones, lithic industry	Lower Palaeolithic

Asa Koma, the “red hill”, lies near Eyla. The site yielded a population of fishers who hunted jackal, kept livestock and produced decorated pottery, in shapes and colours comparable to ceramics found in Sudan. In 1989, the burial of an elderly adult and a young woman was uncovered there. The grave goods combine obsidian and bone tools, ostrich-eggshell beads and Red Sea shells.

Asa Ragid is older still: oyster shells, basalt-rhyolite picks, circular stone structures and a microlithic industry in red jasper and obsidian.

To these are added the tumuli, known locally as awellos. These ancient funerary complexes, made of black volcanic rocks, are concentrated above all near Randa in the Tadjourah region, near Daasbiyo in that of Ali-Sabieh, and in the Gobaad basin, towards Lake Abbe. They appear on the national tentative list of properties proposed for Unesco World Heritage status, and are threatened by looting.

These sites are visited with a guide: the remains read poorly without someone who knows them, and nothing is touched there. See also the Ali-Sabieh region for the remains of the other slope.

How do you get to the Dikhil region?

Means	What the ANT publishes	Note
Bus	700 Fdj a seat	Daily service with Djibouti City
Car	National highway 1 towards Galafi	Tarmac axis serving the town
Plane	Small airport at Dikhil	The town is linked daily to the capital by bus
4×4	Track towards Lake Abbe	Suitable driver and vehicle essential

National highway 1 is the structuring axis: it links Djibouti City to Galafi, on the Ethiopian border, and serves Dikhil on the way. It is off this road that the accesses to the Grand Bara are grafted, then the track that descends towards Lake Abbe.

Beyond the tarmac, the region changes in nature. The track to Lake Abbe is the critical point of any itinerary in Dikhil: sand, wadi crossings and the absence of landmarks. It is travelled with a 4×4 and a driver who knows the area — see 4×4 hire with a driver.

When to go to the Dikhil region?

Period	What it implies on the ground
November – February	The reference window for Lake Abbe and outdoor sites
March – April	An acceptable transition, days already hot
May – September	To be avoided: punishing track and uncomfortable bivouac
October – November	A gradual return, a good window

The Gobaad depression holds the heat, and the track there soon becomes punishing in summer. In the cool season, the nights at the bivouac become bearable, and the morning light picks out the limestone chimneys and the relief of the plain distinctly. The country’s general calendar is detailed on the page when to go to Djibouti.

What should you know before setting off?

• Allow generously for fuel and water. The stages are long, and resupply points are rare on the track leading to Lake Abbe.
• Take cash. Banks and exchange offices are mostly in the capital; count in Djiboutian francs.
• Set off with a guide for the archaeological sites. Handoga and the sites of the sector do not read without explanation, and no signage is documented there.
• Take nothing away. Sherds, beads, bones and tumulus stones belong to the national heritage; awellos are already threatened by looting.
• Plan around the season. In summer, an unprepared itinerary towards Lake Abbe comes to nothing.
• Check your visa formalities if you continue your itinerary towards Ethiopia: the border is close and the rules change from one post to another.

The region combines naturally with a day in Djibouti City before departure, and with the Ali-Sabieh region on the way back.