Travel Guide Damerdjog

Damerdjog is 30 km southeast of Djibouti City, in the Arta region, north of the Somali border. The road crosses a sandy plain and cuts the course of many small wadis, often dry. Acacias and... unfortunately plastic bags (the Djibouti dump is between Douda and Damerdjog) are the main actors of the landscape. Looking out to sea, we can see the islet Ouaramous, a large rock inhabited by many birds and better known as the island of the Turtle. Before reaching Damerdjog, we find the charming Decan refuge, a beautiful site for wildlife observation, and a surprising golf course in the middle of acacias and a stone's throw from the public dump of Douda! Damerdjog is a small town with a mosque, a school and a brand new secondary school as focal points. A small hospital can provide first aid, emergencies are transferred to the hospital in Djibouti. Originally, the village was settled in the 1970s around a military post created to help control migration flows. Today it has about 3,500 inhabitants. There is a small snack bar to help you out. The village is built in the middle of many wadis, which allows the community to have multiple small irrigated crops. In the vicinity, archaeologists discovered, at the end of the 1960s, small menhirs, sometimes engraved, probably dating from the pre-Islamic period. The basalt rock from which they were carved is almost red. A guide or a villager can show you the site.