Domoni

The road from Mutsamudu to Domoni climbs through the heart of Anjouan, through hills so intensely green they seem lit from inside — banana groves and ylang-ylang trees and clove bushes and the occasional flash of orange flame tree on a ridgeline. My taxi was a minivan with nine people in it and a chicken in a basket on the roof, and the driver navigated the switchbacks with the calm confidence of a man who had done this particular route several thousand times and expected no surprises from it. We arrived in Domoni two hours later, at the point where the road ran out at a rocky terrace above the sea, and I stepped out into a wind that smelled of salt and cloves simultaneously, a combination that should not work but does.

Domoni was once the most important city in the Comoros — the seat of a sultanate that controlled trade across the northern Mozambique Channel and was wealthy enough to build mosques of genuine architectural ambition. The evidence of that former consequence is still visible in the old quarter, where coral-stone walls rise three and four storeys, where carved stucco decorates the lintels of doors that now open onto empty rooms, where the Friday mosque dates to the twelfth century. But it is visible in the way ruins are visible — as the remnants of something that became more beautiful through its decline, which is perhaps a particular quality of Islamic architecture in tropical climates. The stone is porous, soft, alive with moss and salt. The walls breathe.

I spent an afternoon walking through the old quarter with a man I will call Mohammed, who found me at the first mosque, offered his services as guide at a price that seemed fair, and turned out to know the history of every significant wall. He showed me the ruins of the old palace, the inscription stones half-buried in a garden, the place where the sultan’s boats used to be launched. He told me the population of Domoni had fallen by half since his childhood as people moved to Mutsamudu or to the mainland. He said this without regret or particular emotion, as a statement of fact. Then he showed me a door he said was six hundred years old and ran his hand along the carving the way you touch something you are proud to know.

The sea below Domoni is rougher than the sheltered western coasts — the Indian Ocean arrives here without mediation, pushing white water against the coral terraces. In the late afternoon, men fish from the rocks with hand lines while boys climb the same coral walls that have been climbed for centuries. The persistence of daily life in a place of such diminished consequence is its own form of dignity. When I took the taxi back to Mutsamudu as evening came, the hills were turning purple and the smell of ylang-ylang was stronger than ever. Domoni was already invisible behind the first ridge, as if it had never quite committed to being seen.

When to go: Domoni is accessible year-round, but the road between Mutsamudu and Domoni is significantly better managed during the dry season, May through October. Shared taxis make the journey daily — expect two hours and a full vehicle. There is no hotel in Domoni itself; stay in Mutsamudu and make the journey as a day trip. The old quarter is best in the morning light before the midday heat sets in.