Welcome to Massawa: Drive with Care, Life is Dear

These are the words that welcome weary travelers to Massawa after a harrowing drive down the escarpment from Asmara. I have no doubt that the greatest danger I've faced since arriving in Eritrea is riding without a seatbelt in a car or bus on one of Eritrea many mountain roads. As a rule, the roads out of Asmara are narrow and littered with sharp curves and steep drop-offs. But despite these obvious dangers, drivers here don't seem to think twice about taking turns at 80 kph (50 mph) or passing on a blind curve. Yet this past weekend, I somehow made it safely down and back up the escarpment road in an Eritrean minibus.

I know that I said a while back that I was going to write three posts about my last trip to Senafe, but before I tell you about the Stela of Metara, I need to do some research. So in the meantime, I thought I'd share a little about my brief weekend trip to Massawa.

Last weekend, Anna, Genet, James, and I took the bus to Massawa for a last weekend getaway before the hearing and my departure. For a foreigner, a weekend in Massawa is about as expensive as dinner and a movie in the states. The bus costs 30 nakfa ($2) each way, and the hotel we stayed in on the beach cost 132 nakfa (about $8) for the night. Of course even the Red Sea Hotel, the nicest place in Massawa, only costs betweeen $28 and $35 a night. We also went back to the Sallam restaurant for dinner, which cost something like 80 nakfa ($5). I think, percentage wise, we spent more money on Coke and alcohol than anything else.

The weekend was fairly relaxing after we got out of Asmara. I was stressed in the morning on Saturday because we left late, and it took us awhile to find a bus with enough empty seats for all four of us. But it worked out, and we were on the beach in Massawa before 3 p.m. We decided that being on the beach in late March meant that, although we're all out of school, we could pretend to be on spring break and start drinking then and there. It wasn't long before we all had a pretty good buzz going. And the result was Genet the mermaid ... well, that and a penis palace, but anyway ...



After spending the day swimming, we decided to check into the hotel there on Gergusom Beach so that we could do more swimming at night. I know what you're thinking: after the problems we had swimming at night on the islands, we should have been at least somewhat hesistant, right? Well, Gergusom beach is very sandy, and you can walk out quite a ways without encountering a rock, let alone a sea urchin.

But I digress. Anyway, we went into town for dinner and drinks in the evening. We returned to the Sallam Restaurant, the place where I had the giant fish head last time. Here's the kitchen at the Sallam. As I might have mentioned last time, they cook the fish by shoving into the fire with a stick. It's pretty weird to watch, but apparently that is "the way" people cook fish in Yemen.



From there, we headed to a bar by the water. On the way there, we some how decided that it would be a good idea to give each other piggy back rides. Some how I got out of giving rides, but I did get one from Genet. Nevertheless, by far the best picture is this one of Anna carrying James.



Oh, and have I ever mentioned how small Eritrea is? It doesn't seem to matter where you go in this country; you'll always run into someone you know or someone who knows someone you know. Anyway, during the course of our night in Massawa, we ran into this Italian guy we know who apparently lives in Massawa but is often in Asmara, and this Eritrean- American guy we saw on the beach earlier in the day and who turned out to be the ex-boyfriend of one of our friends. So, we decided to invite them back to Gergusum with us for some gin and tonic and night swimming.