Parting the Red Sea...


This past weekend, I took my first "vacation" since arriving in Eritrea. Sure, it didn't actually involve taking much time off (about four hours). But it did mean traveling outside of Asmara for some reason other than work.

I actually had a pretty hectic week. I spent most of it gathering evidence in Senafe with Anna, Yosief, and Amanuel. Then, twenty-four hours after returning to Asmara, we took off again for Massawa and the Dahlak Islands. It was a fairly large group (11 people), although we originally thought we would have 15. Our party was made up mostly of people from our office (Anna, Diane, Yohannes, Yosief, Amanuel, Isaias, and myself), but there were a few others thrown in.
One of those was Lana, a doctor from the US who is doing her residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is currently doing a five week rotation in Asmara and will be living with Anna and I. The other three included Diane's boyfriend; Yoselam (sp?), who is the only female cab driver I've ever seen in Asmara; and Pete, one of only two foreign correspondents in Asmara (The other one, Jack, appears in one of the pictures in my Christmas post.).

For better or worse, it was a pretty action packed weekend. We began by driving to Massawa by way of Filfil, the last remaining tropical forest in Eritrea. In the past, foreigners have not been allowed in Filfil, but those regulations have recently changed. Filfil is supposed to be a great location for spotting wildlife, including monkeys and baboons. Unfortunately, the only animals I saw were birds, and I didn't get a very good look at them because we were always moving. It was nevertheless an interesting drive. We began so high up on the mountain that we literally had to descend into the clouds below us. For awhile, the clouds were so dense that we weren't sure we would actually get to see Filfil at all. But it eventually cleared up enough for us to get the idea. Indeed, I think there may be more greenery in Filfil than in the rest of Eritrea combined.



We spent Friday night in Massawa. We didn't have much time to explore, but we did have an excellent fish dinner at the popular Sallam Restaurant. Fish is literally the only thing on the menu at this place. And bread is the only available "side dish." The chef cooks the fish by shoving it into a hole in a woodburning stove with a long stick. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed the fish half as much as I did had I spent time in the kitchen.



Each of us was served a whole jackfish, and somehow I ended up with the largest fish at the table. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish it. But we did get this great picture with its head!

After dinner, most of the group walked through the old part of Massawa, which was built by the Ottomans hundreds of years ago. Obviously, it's quite different from Asmara, which is largely Italian. I really need to get back to Massawa before I leave the country so that I can spend some time really appreciating the architecture. Anyway, we ended up at a bar in one of these old buildings, which had a nice view of the water. The bar was owned by an Eritrean-American guy who was very excited to have Anna, Lana, and I there. On the other hand, he was visibly disappointed when Pete said that he was from Britain.

The next morning, we boarded the Holiday Eritrea for Dissei Island. We were originally supposed to be headed to Dahlak Kebir, which is by far the largest island in the archipelago. However, it is currently the rainy season in that part of the country, and we were trying to avoid the rain on Dahlak Kebir.



While we were loading the boat, I had a chance to snap this picture of the Imperial Palace. From what I have gathered, it was actually built by the Ottoman Turks. However, it is best known as Haile Selassie's palace. The structual damage was inflicted by Eritreans during the Armed Struggle. According to Diane, Haile Selassie's furniture is still inside.

The boat ride to the island was very pleasant. There was a warm breeze, and we were able to dangle our feet so that they got wet when we came across a large wave. We even saw a few dolphins.



Upon arrival at our island, we were served lunch on the boat and then swam to shore (well, those of us who could swim did anyway). I then spent much of the afternoon enjoying the great snorkling just offshore. Although I didn't see any one thing that was particularly memorable (such as a baricuda or a shark), the sheer diversity of fish and coral was impressive. I really liked this one kind of fish that seemed to be both rainbow-colored and completely translucent at the same time. Unfortunately, I can't share the underwater photos yet because they are on a disposable camera that I need to have developed.



The rest of the daylight hours were spent exploring the island itself. Anna, Pete, and I even climbed up a hill in order to try to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy, and there wasn't really anything to see. But here's the view back towards our campsite.



I would like to say that the rest of the trip was as tranquil and pleasant as most of Saturday was, but with the darkness came the excitement, much of which was of a negative sort. And for that reason, I won't get into most of it. But I will share a small part of the story.

To begin with, we had a little too much to drink, as one seems apt to do in Eritrea. And at some point, a group of us decided to take a walk down the beach to check out some shark heads that someone else had spotted earlier. Suddenly, Pete strips off his clothes, runs into the sea, and starts flailing about. The rest of us just stare at him bewildered, until he says, "It's the phosphorescence" (i.e., the light emitted by bioluminescent plankton). At that point we knew what he was talking about because he had been telling us about his previous encounters with such bioluminescent plankton earlier in the day. It didn't take Anna and I very long to jump on the band wagon, and suddenly we were swimming in stars. It was a pretty amazing sight, and we might have been in and out of the water all night long had Anna not stepped on a sea urchin.

With that one small mistake (which honestly I'm really surprised I wasn't the one to make it), all of the fun came to a screeching halt. Suddenly our attention was all on her. And thank goodness we happened to have a doctor with us. Although there was actually very little she could do, it was just nice to have someone there who knew what she was doing.

The next day was mostly consumed with packing up and making it back to Massawa. I got in a little more snorkling before we left our little cove. Before leaving Dissei, we stopped at an Afar fishing village on the other side of the island, and we all wondered silently how those people could possibly survive out there on what really is a dessert island. The Afar are yet another ethnic group living in Eritrea. They mostly live further south along the coast, near Assab. There are also Afar living in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. Actually, I have heard that their king is in Djibouti. Anyway, the Afar don't care much about national borders and are not typically loyal to any of the countries in which they live. Instead, they seem to only be loyal to the Afar nation.



Unfortunately, I somehow ended up missing the boat to shore, so I didn't have a chance to buy any souvenirs from them or to see them up close, but I did snap a couple of shots from the boat.




After leaving Dissei, we had lunch on the boat and headed back to Massawa. I fell asleep on the front of the boat and didn't wake up until we are pretty close to the port. The day ended with the long climb to Asmara (over 2000 verticle meters in about three hours).