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Blogs from Eritrea, Africa
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September 17th 2010
There are times travel itself plans a day off: days left open with not much to do between bus journey and plane booking. It was on such a day in January 1998 that I lazed over breakfast in one of those small side street cafés in the small Eritrean capital of Asmara, hoping to prolong the coffee as prelude to a day given to postcard writing and laundry. Asmara, with a population of 500,000 people, is a pretty place set among small hills atop an escarpment some 2,325 metres above and 60 kilometres inland from the Red Sea. It has fine boulevards and admirable Italian architecture, for Eritrea was an Italian colony until 1941. There’s a nifty craft market to explore and both the cathedral and mosque to visit, with the approximately five million Eritreans, speaking ... read more
February 9th 2007
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 ... read more
December 11th 2006
I wonder if this naming-the-beer-after-the-city malarkey would catch on at home? - "I'll have three bottles of Glasgow please" - perhaps not but it certainly makes life easier for thirsty travellers like us; we've got enough to contend with, like tackling extortionate airport taxi cartels and getting our paws on dollars in a bankrupt country without a single ATM..... Asmara, formerly known as Piccola Roma (Little Rome), is essentially a result of Mussolini's grand plan to create a second Roman Empire in Africa.....but WWII scuppered that. The city is known for its diverse architectural styles, manifested in buildings such as the Art Deco Cinema Impero, the eclectic Orthodox Cathedral, the futurist Fiat Tagliero Building and neo-Romanesque Roman Catholic Cathedral. It also has a quintessential Italian touch, not only for the architecture, but also for the wide ... read more
August 17th 2005
3:30am. A petrol station in Assab. The daily bus to Asmara is about to leave. Our entire room, sheets, mattress, etc reeked of (someone else's) sweaty penis, but I still wish I could have slept a couple more hours. We're facing a 1 ½ day journey up the Red Sea coast in August -- following the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest places in the world - until we reach the cool highlands' spring weather. It's pitch dark, but we're already sweating profusely in the absence of even the slightest breeze. Trying to lug my sack onto the bus, and simultaneously fight with a fat lady who's taken my seat, I slip in my sleep-deprived state and end up with a bloody mess where I once had a big toenail. I will devote most of the ... read more
