Comoros Day 3: The Good Souls of Iconi

Having toured Moroni and a few of the villages north of it, I turned my attention to the southern town of Iconi. This sleepy town was once the seat of the Sultanate of Bambao, which also encompassed the country’s present capital. Until the arrival of the French in the late nineteenth century, the island of Ngazidja (or Grande Comore) was divided into ten sultanates, with the sultanate of Bambao and the sultanate of Itsandra occupying a preeminent position among them. Rulers from these two lineages selected the Sultan Ntibe, who crowned the other rulers and theoretically held authority over all but one of the other sultanates.

It was Said Ali bin Said Omar, the sultan of Bambao, who used French backing to establish himself as the sultan of the entire island, acknowledging Ngazidja as a protectorate of France. He would be the only person to ever occupy this position, as France eventually annexed Ngazidja and deposed him. Interestingly, Said Ali bin Said Omar was the son of the sultan of Anjouan and a lady from the Bambao royal family; he inherited the Bambao throne due to the Comoros’ matrilineal culture.

I began my journey to Iconi with a walk from my hotel to the centre of Moroni. Two parallel roads run south from there: the Route Nationale and a worse road a little closer to the sea. Since my destination was by the seaside, I chose the latter road and walked down it until I found a taxi willing to take me to Iconi. I stopped three or four cars before I succeeded, as most drivers were turning left farther down the road and going back into the chaotic streets of the small capital.

I tried to ignore the numerous safety hazards of the car that stopped for me. Still, I could not help noticing the metallic clang produced by closing its doors and that its left rearview mirror was missing. The more serious problem, however, was that the driver had no change for my two-thousand-franc bill, which is the equivalent of about four euros. After I had produced it and given it to him, he drove on waving it out of the window and stopped other taxi drivers to ask if they had change. None of them did. Eventually, we arrived in front of the Grand Mosque of Iconi with the two-thousand-franc banknote still in the driver’s hand.

I was ready to leave the driver a thousand if he could just find another thousand somewhere, while he was ready to let me go without paying. I tried to suggest that we find a shop where we might ask someone to exchange the money, but once I realised he did not understand the French word for “shop,” I could not figure out how to convey my meaning in a different way. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I fished out the Swahili word, but this was not helpful either. Eventually, the driver waved down a primly dressed elderly man sitting at the bus stop in front of the mosque, who came to assist with the translation. He said that the shops would be closed since it was a Sunday, but then unexpectedly resolved the situation by producing some change from his pocket and taking a ride with the driver.

Thus relieved, I began my visit. I toured the Grand Mosque with its impressive ceiling and second-floor balcony, which curves elegantly above the main prayer room. A man was sleeping on the green rugs, and even the incessant clicking of my shutter did not wake him up. There was no one in the mosque beside us two. When I went outside again, I noticed that the clouds were gathering above the distant peak of Mount Karthala, which prompted me to change my plans. Instead of continuing into Iconi’s medina, I decided to climb the nearby cliffs, as I wanted to take a few pictures while the good weather lasted. Besides, climbing a narrow stony trail up a three hundred metre cliff did not seem like a great idea if it were to rain.

I went up the road again to where a Youtube video I had watched a few days earlier said the trail would begin, but try as I may I could not find it. My fallback was to ask the local villagers. Every few hundred metres, I stopped a local and made sure that I was still walking in the right direction, until eventually, one man took pity on me and took me to the beginning of the trail himself. He even showed me a shorter way back to Iconi, which I had missed as it was covered in garbage. I felt so indebted to him that I gave him one of the small banknotes I had received from the man in Iconi.

The ascent was steep. Among the trees, the path was often full of rocks, whereas out on the grassy slopes, it was overgrown by weeds whose seeds clung to my sweaty shirt, arms, and neck. It was so hot and humid that I quickly began to regret not having bought water the previous day, and I wondered whether I would find any since all the shops were meant to be closed. By the time I arrived at the top of the cliff, I was picturing myself passing out from dehydration and falling off.

At the top of Iconi’s cliff stands a small stone watchtower adjoined by a crumbling wall. From this location, one can see both Iconi and the caldera-like valley enclosed by the cliff. I could find very little information about Iconi online, so I am not sure whether the cliff is indeed a volcano or whether its shape is a mere coincidence. What it does say online, however, is that in the olden days, women would jump to their deaths from these steep cliffs to avoid being sold into slavery by raiding Malagasy pirates. I am not sure how true this story might be, given how difficult it would be to find anyone on the cliff if they decided to hide there.

Smoking under the wall by the tower were two local men, one of whom spoke French. After exchanging greetings, he told me that I could walk along the ridge for a bit longer, and sure enough, an even narrower and more overgrown trail began from the spot he indicated. I figured that it would be a shame to turn back right after having reached the summit, so I gave it a try.

The trail immediately went from bad to worse as I battled the slippery stones, tall grass, and branches, all the while trying to see the sense in continuing down a trail that offered no better views than the one I had already seen. Still, I struggled on until one bone-chilling moment when I looked down and saw a big spider with black legs and a green body right on my stomach. Before I could think of how to get it off, however, the spider had decided it did not like being on my stomach either, and it jumped first onto my trousers and then onto the ground. Taking this encounter as a sign, I turned right back.

When I made it back to civilisation, I discovered that my worries about not finding any water were ill-founded, as I found a lady arranging some roots vegetables in front of her little shop just a short distance from the beginning of the trail. I bought two bottles of water and a tiny bottle of Tanzanian coke, which tasted exactly the same as real coke. I then returned to the Grand Mosque and the old ruins of the Iconi Palace beside it. Between the two buildings is a placid natural pool of saltwater, where parents bring their little children to play, and on the palace side of the pool stands a monument to the citizens killed during one of the Comoros’ many coups.

I proceeded to enter the town’s medina. Being the only tourist, I caused a stir: people would look at me for as long as I was within their sight, and sometimes they would venture a bonjour or a salaam aleikum. I decided that the whole ordeal of waiting and seeing was too awkward for me, so whenever I felt a person’s gaze resting on me, I greeted them myself, which drew me into several conversations. One local man took it upon himself to tell me about Iconi’s sites, which include a fourteenth-century mosque and a bangwe, or city square. The paths to this square lead through tall gates with several niches and windows on top, which local children sometimes use as goal posts for their games of football.

It was still early in the day when I passed through Iconi’s medina and left its southern exit, so I decided to just keep on going. Walking down the pothole-filled road that runs along the trash-filled beach, I made it to Mbachilé-Bambao and then followed the road inland to Serehini and the Route Nationale. The farther I went, the more bewildered people seemed to be about my presence, and several came up to me to ask whether I needed help. After I reached the crossroads, I flagged a taxi and asked the driver to take me all the way back to Moroni again.

My intention upon returning to Moroni was to visit the museum, but when I arrived, I found it closed. Contrary to usual operating hours in Europe, the museum was closed on Sunday with the standard operating hours beginning at eight o’clock on weekdays. I decided I would try to visit again the following morning before my flight. After eating lunch in the city, I decided to go back to my hotel. The clouds above Mount Karthala looked dark and menacing, though I cannot vouch that it was perspicacity rather than laziness that prompted my return. Not long after I had settled in, the rain came down with fury, and the power went out just as I was finishing a radio play of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.