Maydh

Getting to Maydh is the whole story, really. It sits on the Gulf of Aden coast of Somaliland, in the Sanaag region, and the road there drops off the Cal Madow escarpment in a series of switchbacks so steep that our driver, Cabdi, simply turned the engine off on the descents and let gravity do the work, grinning at me in the mirror the entire time. Lia stopped looking out the window somewhere around the third hairpin. Then the mountains opened and there was the sea, impossibly blue, and a scatter of low white buildings at the water’s edge that turned out to be one of the oldest settlements on this whole stretch of coast.

The Tomb of Sheikh Isaaq

Maydh’s fame, such as it is, rests on a single white-domed shrine: the tomb of Sheikh Isaaq bin Ahmed, the medieval founder claimed as ancestor by the Isaaq clan-family that fills much of Somaliland. Pilgrims come from across the region and beyond, some travelling for days to reach this small building by the sea. I am not a pilgrim and felt slightly intrusive standing there, but the caretaker — an elderly man with a wisp of beard and hennaed hands — waved us closer without ceremony and pointed out the worn threshold, smoothed by centuries of bare feet.

What struck me was how unmonumental it all is. No ticket, no fence, no interpretive sign. Just a holy place that has been holy for the better part of a thousand years, doing its quiet work between the mountains and the tide. We drank sweet tea with the caretaker in the shade of the wall while he told us, through Cabdi’s patchy translation, that fewer foreigners come now than when he was a boy. He did not seem to mind either way.

A Town the Sea Is Slowly Taking Back

The town itself is half-ruin and half-alive. Many of the old coral-stone merchant houses — Maydh was a trading port for frankincense and livestock long before the modern borders existed — stand roofless, their walls dissolving back into the rubble they came from. Goats picked through the lanes. A group of boys played a furious game of football on the only flat sandy stretch, using two stones for a goal, and roped me in for ten breathless minutes until I had to bow out, wheezing, to their great delight.

We ate fresh fish that evening, grilled over charcoal on the beach, so fresh it had been swimming that afternoon. Lia, who is suspicious of all seafood on principle, ate two whole fish and licked her fingers. The Milky Way came out so brightly over the Gulf that I could see our shadows on the sand by starlight. I have travelled to places more comfortable and far better known. I have rarely felt further from the noise of the world.

Practicalities: Maydh is reached overland from Erigavo (Ceerigaabo), the Sanaag regional capital, with a 4x4 and a driver who knows the mountain road — do not attempt it alone. Check current security and travel advice before going, hire locally, and travel with respect: this is a living pilgrimage site, not a viewpoint.