Once in Addis Ababa, visiting Harar should be inescapable. Harar is one of the most impressive of Ethiopia’s historic sites, reflecting the long and colorful history of the country. Located in the East of Ethiopia, it was founded in the late first millennium BC and became a stronghold of Islam. Harar has been ruled by seventy-two successive imams since its formation.
Harar, Islam’s fourth holiest city covers just a single square kilometer in eastern Ethiopia, and this walled citadel contains over 80 mosques and 360 labyrinthine alleyways dating back up to 1,000 years. The elegant Islamic architecture, colorful robes, and ancient markets seemed to have altered little since then.
One of Harar’s main draws is the feeding of the hyenas – a nightly ritual that deters the predators from attacking livestock. One of the town’s ancient traditions has also become one of its main attractions; every day a selected resident goes out of the city and calls the Hyenas that live in the surrounding areas, only to feed them by hand. You see people feed hyenas a bit of meat; don’t assume throwing these well-known predators the meat from a distance, it is rather feeding them a piece of meat dangling from a stick, held between your teeth!
It is also one of the main Muslim pilgrimages and has many fascinating sites including the old walled town which was established in The 1540s, and contains 90 mosques.
