After the late night last night, it was good to have a sleep in until the alarm sounded at 7:15 am. Andrew and I both had enjoyable showers - we have come to appreciate it when we arrive at a hotel that has enough hot water for two people to have showers in the morning. No blackouts, reliable running water, including hot water - these are the signs of an above average hotel! We had a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which had the nice touch, I thought, of doubling as a wildlife refuge - even though flies were the only type of wildlife present, they were there in huge abundance, crawling over the food, the plates and the utensils. We really do feel close to nature in such situations.

Our aim today was to explore Asmara, and for this purpose we had arranged for a driver and his little yellow taxi to take us around. My initial impressions of Asmara were that it was a kind of African version of Adelaide - clean, orderly, slow (in fact, very slow), wide streets, well laid-out, and low-rise. Many of the buildings had been constructed by the Italian Fascists during the 1930s and 1940s, often in art-deco style, and although sometimes crumbling and lacking maintenance, they combined to make a very elegant city.

Before starting to explore Asmara, we had one important stop to make, which was the Eritrea Airlines office. I had booked tickets by e-mail several months ago for our flight from Asmara to Dijbouti on 2nd July, but I had to pay and collect the tickets after arrival in Asmara. So you can imagine that we somewhat dismayed to be told a little dismissively that the flight had been cancelled. Apparently Eritrea and Djibouti are having some kind of conflict which, I was told, has not yet erupted into war, but has resulted in all contact between the two countries being suspended.

That discovery initiated a search for a replacement way out of Eritrea, which was not an easy task. Neither Eritrea nor Djibouti has very many international flights in or out. Egypt Air had a flight to Cairo on Wednesday 2nd July, but there were no flights from Cairo to Djibouti. Yemenia had a flight to Sana’a on Tuesday 1st July, but its connecting flight to Djibouti was on Friday 4th July, arriving after our flight back to Hong Kong (via Addis Ababa) was due to have already departed. Land access between Eritrea and Djibouti was impossible in the current situation, and the only other option to leave Eritrea was tomorrow morning on the Eritrea Airlines weekly flight to Dubai. Having found a way out of Eritrea, we started to explore flights between Dubai and Djibouti. As it turned out, there are four weekly flights between Dubai and Djibouti, all on vintage Boeing 727s operated by Djibouti’s Daallo Airlines. The flights on Monday 30th June and Tuesday 1st July were already full, but we managed to get the last two seats (we hope) for the flight on Thursday 3rd July. I say “we hope” because although the reservation has been made, the tickets can only be confirmed after they have been paid for, and this must be done in Dubai. Thus, we spent the whole morning finding a way out of Eritrea, and the only solution that was possible for us has meant that, unfortunately, most of our Eritrean plans have had to be cancelled.

http://www.stephencodrington.com/Site/African_Travel_Diary_2008/Entries/2008/6/28_Day_28_-_Asmara,_Eritrea.html

However, all was not lost. Haile, our taxi driver, offered us the choice of spending the afternoon exploring Asmara (as planned) or taking a round-trip of about 250 kilometres for Massawa, a town of 40,000 people on the Red Sea coast to the north-east of Asmara. As our original plans had involved a full-day trip to Massawa, which was described in the guidebooks as one of Eritrea’s ‘must-see’ locations, we accepted the offer of the long drive - certainly a long drive for a little yellow Kia taxi that usually plies the streets of Asmara.

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For the summer schedule 2009 Frankfurt Airport announced that Eritrean Airlines ceased flying to Frankfurt. So far Eritrean Aviation was dominated by Eritrean Airlines serving mainly Eritreans abroad visiting friends and relatives in their home country during summer holidays or Christmas. However, a second airline named Nasair came recently into spotlight enriching the Eritrean Aviation sector. Nasair was founded in 2006 in Eritrea with a more regional network than Eritrean Airlines. The airline is part of the Sharjah-based Nasair Group, operating scheduled services linking Asmara with around half a dozen destinations within Eritrea and in Kenya, the Sudan and United Arab Emirates. It also offers charter services. Sister company Nasair Cargo offers world wide cargo charters from its base in Massawa.

Most of the Nasair’s passenger traffic destined for Massawa comes from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. For 2008 the share of Passengers originating from outside Eritrea and traveling to Massawa was split between those two countries. You can visit the airline at the Nasairgroup homepage.

Exporting to Eritrea, Lybia, Kuwait, Angola etc.

To apply for the job. read more:

Have you ever wondered about Eritrean Food and how it appeals to other people than Eritreans? read more:

Eritrea is quiet a hidden spot for travel in Africa and underestimated in its tourism potential. The country offers many facets of geographical and cultural aspects. From the impressive Italian style art deco capital Asmara in the highlands to the oriental read sea town of Massawa on the read sea. Recently, in the Articlesbase Online travel section a visitor explains what to do in Eritrea for holiday. The country is populated by 13 different ethnic groups, which give Eritrea a unique touch of richness in diverstiy. Efforts have been stepped up to promote Eritrea as a tourism destination by the Eritrean government in order to earn mostly needed hard currency. Since a few years Eritrea is represented at the International Tourism Fair in Berlin ITB as reported earlier by capitaleritrea. However, the development of a tourism industry is hampered by the ongoing conflict with neighboring Ethiopia and the risk of new wars erupting between both countries. Moreover, the region has been in recent years in bad publicity, due to instability and war in Somalia, Darfur in Sudan, and the military presence of western nations in Djibouti. Eritrea will therefore most probably remain a hidden spot known only to the Eritrean Diaspora and their friends.