Eritrea

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  Asmara, Eritrea
Saturday, October 1, 2005

Driving in the early hours of the morning from Asmara international airport, the streets are empty.I am worried that nobody will be awake at Pension Pisa or will sleep too heavily. The lad has his bed under the counter like a sailors berth and hears my knocking. It is a fine introduction into what is commonly and correctly referred to as the most pleasant city in Africa.

On the streets a lively cafe society exists, especially at night when laughing smiling Eritreans crowd the coffe shops and the older male crowd find hole in the wall bars. Though after a few days here, some realities become apparent. Not the poverty of the rest of Africa but of politics and war and a heavy handed government. I somehow suspect that thoe womn in blue shawls who spend all day keeping the streets spotless are there by choice.


The city is set around wide Italian streets and a downtown dotted with interesting examples of 1950s Italian (art deco ish) architecture, including the very cool Fiat building. The Italians also left behind a strong cafe culture. Cafes serving small, rich cups of brew turned out by the mandatory Italian expresso machines perched on every counter top, many with streetside seating, line the main streets and are a huge hangout for the mostly younger crowd in the evenings. The older generation retire to the equally numerous hole in the wall bars that line the side streets, to drink small bottles of quite decent Asmara beer. I suspect that Africa is quite the drinking continent.
I spent the weekend here in Asmara and have just spent a few nights in a town to the North called Keren, three hours by bus. We passed through typical villages with a smattering of rotting military vehicles along the roads from the war. Rusting hulks perched where they were last shot at There is an effort to clean up i think and there is a huge scrapyard here in town i hope to photograph, which is their final resting place. Keren is dusty and colorful, many muslims and beaten, lumpy streets seperating terraced stores selling all manner of African nicknacks. I got off the bus and spotted a bunch of kids in white robes and yellow belts practising Karate in the shade of a derelict building so i chatted and took some nice shots of them. Next i will go To Massawa for a night or two, a coastal city with an extreme drop from 5000 feet here to sea level there, in two hours.
I had hoped to make the big move south soon but this is proving a little problamatic. I am pushing for a Friday departure for the 2 day bus ride through the Danakil, though if not then, it will be monday. I hope to move sooner rather than later as time is running and i am altering my goals as i go along.- (still that fluid dynamics thing, i wonder if there is nobel paper i can write on this concept) I really want to do the desert trip from Djibouti to Hergiesa in Somaliland but It is looking like i will have to sacrifice travelling in the south of Ethiopia and use the couple extra days to see around lake tana instead. I will still need 10 days in Sudan at the end
So thats it so far. I am thoroughly enjoying myself and taking a gentle intro in the great black continent.

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