Nairobi

I arrived in Djibouti from Eritrea and found a cheap flight to Nairobi leaving the next day. This seemed far more preferable to spending a minimum of seven days on a bus to get to Nairobi and so I took the easy option. I arrived at the airport and got mobbed by loads of touts but shook them all off and got a taxi to very nice hostel. The first thing that struck me was how many travelers there were here, but that was very welcome after meeting very few people in Eritrea.

Within a few hours of being in Nairobi I managed to get myself some work as an extra on a Russian film set being shot in the Shaba national park in the north of the country. We drove up the next day, but our drivers spent ages sorting stuff out in Nairobi and we didn't make to the park in time to stay at the plush lodge and instead stayed an ok hotel in Isiolo. The drivers took two girls with them and we were fairly sure they had stalled us on purpose so they could stay with the girls.

We got to up early the next and made it to the film set and we all got kitted out as Russian soldiers. We were all given guns as well and one guy was handed a machine gun with live ammunition in it. We were then told that we wouldn't be able stay at the lodge in the evening and would have to go back to Nairobi. We weren't too pleased about this especially as we hadn't made it to the lodge the night before so we formed a union and refused to go on set unless we could get accommodation at the lodge and get paid more money. Our little mini-strike worked and our demands were met.

The scene we were in involved us chasing an imaginary monkey around. It was a fairly short scene but took all day to shoot. I think it may be the most boring job I have ever done. It was however good fun to be on a film set and the in evening we stayed in the lodge and had a swim in the pool and then had great food at the buffet. The best feed I have had since I've been away.

I'm back in Nairobi now where I have caught up with Dan the crazy cyclist again. Dan broke his shoulder in Ethiopia when he a had a crash on his bike. After the crash he was stoned by an angry Ethiopian mob and then put in jail for murder despite the fact no one was dead. He managed to bribe his way out and got his shoulder fixed up in Nairobi. He has been working at an orphanage here, while he recuperates, which I went and visited. Other than that I have just been relaxing in my hostel, drinking Tusker beer and eating well while I decide what to do next.

Eritrea

First port of call in Eritrea was the capital Asmara. It's a pretty nice place, the architecture is heavily influenced by Italian occupation and Asmara unlike many other towns in the country avoided heavy bombing in war with Ethiopia so most of the buildings are still in tact. At an altitude of 2300 metres and clear blue skies every day the climate here is perfect.

There isn't a great deal to do in Asmara in terms of tourist attractions, but I spent a couple of days wondering around viewing the architecture and sipping on juices and eating pastries. I wondered over to the railway station to check out the possibility of traveling on a steam train. One had just left earlier that day, but I did meet a very nice guy called Yemane who works on restoring the tracks and the steam engines. Now I'm not really a train buff (honest) but it was intersting to the steam engines; they have four in working order and are restoring a couple more. The only shame is that they hardly ever seem to be used.

From here I took the short bus ride to Keren, a couple of hours away. I spent a couple days here and visited the Maryam Dearit Chapel, a chapel that has been carved out of the inside of a large tree. My plan had been to go from here to Nakfa to visit the underground city that was built to during the war with Ethiopia, but the government aren't letting tourists go there at the moment.

So it was back to Asmara where I caught up with Yemane again, but still no steam trains running, so as I was running out of things to do I decided to pay a visit to the monastery of Debre Bizen. The monastery is a two hour a walk up a moutain from the village of Nefasit. A couple of local kids ran out of school and offered to guide me to the monastery. I politely declined their offers and off they went back to school. Then another guy started following me, imposing himself on me as my guide. He proved a lot harder to shake off. After I told him I didn't need a guide abot two hundred times, he told his long list of woes: his father was 88 and couldn't leave the house, his mother had ovary cancer. When I was unmoved by this he then revealed that he had just tested positive for HIV, and his brothers had been killed in the war. The somewhat incredulous list of mishaps contiued until I gave him 10 nakfa (thats about 30p) and he finally left me alone.

It was a very pleasant, peaceful walk up the mountain once I was finally on my own. As I reached the top the clouds came in, but I was above the cloud level and the monastery looked great above the clouds. I was admitted to the monastery and had my feet washed. I was fed and given drink and showed round the place by a young boy. I gave the monks a gift of some candles, which turned out to be a fairly useless as they now have electricity, and also donated some money for the upkeep of monastery. I was hoping to spend the night here, but for some reason they didn't seem to want to let me stay and I ended up having to scuttle back down the mountain to make it in time for the last bus back to Asmara.

After one night in Asmara I headed down to the coastal port of Masawa. Masawa was carpet bombed in the war and it hasn't really recovered. There were a lot of derelict buildings and the ones that are still standing are riddled with bullet holes. I met up with two Slovenians here, Vesna and Dusan. We had been hoping to do some diving here, but the German dive instructor had just left town the previous day and the costs were a bit prohibitive anyway. The wet season apparently had just started the day arrived, at completely the wrong time of year, so it was dull and overcast for the two days I spent here. The highlight would have to be the Sellam restaurant which served great fish cooked in a fire.

So it was back to Asmara again, after queuing three hours in Masawa to get a bus out of the place, and time to think of something else to do. After a day off, spent eating pastries and drinking juice, I met up with Vesna and Dusan again and we hired a four wheel drive to go to Dankalia, the low lying region in the south of Eritrea. We had to take a driver with us which was a bit of a shame, because he didn't seem to like us and we didn't like him either. We had a brief stop in the vilaage of Foro and continued onto Irafaeli. Not many white people make it here and we were met with a few curious glances. The villagers, apart from a few of the kids, were actually very shy and not very forthcoming - one of the only place been in Africa where no one asked me for money. We continued the same day to Galelo. This was another very small village, but for some reason unknown to us there was a huge hotel and helipad just outside the village. The hotel was pretty plush but had no customers. At just over $10 we decided to stay here for the night.

We carried on the next day to Thio, after a bit of a sulk by our driver because he wanted to return to Asmara. There is an old military base in the village which is littered with rusting vehicles. We had a bite to eat here and were served some coffee by the locals. Before leaving we left them some gifts of salt and sugar which were gratefully received. By this time we had just about enough of our driver, so we decided to cut our trip short and asked him to drive us back to Asmara. Our driver got in a mood about this as well despite the fact it was he who had originally wanted to return Asmara earlier in the day.

After a couple more days in Asmara, I was able to take the steam train to Nefasit and back. I had already traveled by road to Nefasit but it was nice to take the steam train and a more leisurely pace to take in the mountain scenery.

My last trip in Eritrea was to Barentu, a small, quiet, laid back muslim town in the west of Eritrea. If you look on a map it actually isn't that far from Kasalla in Sudan where I was two months, but because both the Sudanese and Ethiopian borders are closed it has been a long trip to get from one to the other. There wasn't a great deal to do in Barentu but it was a nice place just to hang out and sip tea in the shade. I met a German guy here and we took a bus together to the village of Tocambia. I don't think many white people get out here at all, but having said that we didn't cause much of a stir in the village and the people we did approach were very polite and friendly. We walked across a dry river bed to an orchard where they grew crops and relaxed in the shade for a while before heading back into the village for a quick cuppa and then we hopped on a bus back to Barentu.

On return to Asmara I met up with Yemane again and was invited to his house for the coffee ceremony where I also met his family and was treated to the traditional feed of injera.

And that was pretty much it for Eritrea. I'm back in Asmara and will fly back to Djibouti tomorrow, upon which I will have to decide where to go next. I came a little out of my way to go to Eritrea and spent a fair bit of money getting here and wasn't entirely sure whether to come here or not. I can't say my expectations of the place were the same as my what I actually experienced here, and in terms of activities I did a lot less here than I was expecting. But it has been nice to get off the tourist trail and spend time in a country where the locals are genuinely glad that you have decided to visit their country and where there is virtually no hassle. And as with any place you will never know what it's like unless you actually go there.