The house of Rimbaud in the mysterious w
In order to get to this charming walled town, worthy of a Scheherazade tale, you can take the historical train from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, which stops in Dire Dawa, then local buses to Harar. It has a majority of muslim citizens and in the past was a forbidden city (the traveller and polyglot Richard Burton was the first European to get there and go out alive). The market is fascinating and during the nights there is a man who knows the hyenas of the desert and calls them by their names to feed them.
The house where presumably lived the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, an admirer of Baudelaire, is within the walls. He spent long time in Abyssinia making business (undoubtedly he was a better poet than entrepreneur).
The house is in deplorable conditions. With a tactful baksheesh they will allow you to go upstairs and watch the colourful glass windows.
Rimbaud contracted in Abyssinia a tumour in his knee and as consequence of it died back in Marseilles. He was only 37 years old.
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