8 days in Eritrea

Africa » Eritrea
February 9th 2007

Published: February 9th 2007

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Machaz26

Lunch stop

Farmers and cows walking by while we ate.

Disclaimer: I am writing this from memory, its been almost three years (June 2003). I am also leaving out most of the political commentery being that it came from a offical source.

After trying many diffrent travel agents, we finaly found one that could book us tickets on Ertrian Airlines that claimd to be fliying direct into Asmara from Milan.

We landed in Milan on a Monday morning, we checked the place out and checked into a nice four star hotel that I found on hotels.com for 25% of thier walk up price. After spending a little over a day in Milan and talking the train to checkout Como we went back to the airport to catch our flight.

On arrival we were told that the flight was going to be delayed by a few hours so just wait around, we were also told that they couldent find our borading passes, but that we shouldent worry about it.

After being chased down on the other side on Malpensa by the fellow in charge of this airline because they moved back up the flight, we got onto the 767 for our flight into Africa.

We arrived to

Eiritrean Airlines First Plane

a nice and hot african night. After getting into the immegration hall, the Israeli Embassadors assistant was waiting for us to get us our visas and thru customs, after clearing customs we said hello to the Embassador who had come to pick us up.

We squeezed into his SUV, the two of us, his exclency, his assistant and his body gaurd, and we hit the road to his house where we were going to be staying.

The next day we arranged our activities with the people there, planned when we would arrange the passover seder and the matzah bakery for the kids, we hit the road with the other familes from the emabasy and the advisor to the President of Eritrea on agrcultor and his son Uri who was visiting from Israel. We were led by a nice lady from a aid org who knew all the nice places in the desert to hike.

We drove past some wells with children playing and taking water, and a college that is a few miles out of the city where many westerners teach, and stoped at a red canyon, where we hiked around and down to a small trickling

The market

Benny standing near the spices.

waterfall, being bored of just the bottom of the canyon, I hiked stright up the other side by myself as nobody would come with me.

We then did lunch and me and Linda (I think) hiked up to see these interesting formations of rock.

Saterday night, we went of a offical soccer match with the embassador, we sat in these big lawn chairs right above the center of the picth, we had drinks at half time with some interesting people from the Ertrian goverment.

The day we were seculed to leave, our flight was midnight, so we decided to go down to Masawa, the way down had great scenery and many diffrent landscapes and my friend getting sick and throwing up.

In Massaw we sat at the beach and ate a bit, and checked the place out. The entire city looked very beat up with most of the major buldings having many craters and holes from the shelling. The water was a stuning green, and it was a humid 115 F outside, so not wanting to miss our flight and feeling back for my fellow travlers we decided to leave.

On the way back up

The market 2

The pottery department

my friends neighbors brother who had come along on the trip to Masawa got real sick and was having migranes, it was a exciting trip. I made sure to pass out choclate to all the kids everywere we stoped.

We got back to find a whole display of suvaneirs that had been bought for us waiting in the living room, we packed fast and went to the airport.

Additional photos below

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