Keren- into the countryside
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2008
1
4
79
Trip End
Aug 22, 2008
Keren,
Eritrea
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Keren was as beautiful as we were told it would be. It was surrounded by hills and full of people from the neighbouring villages. Many women had huge gold nose rings and small boys with donkeys. The clothing people wear is a mixture of everything- western, Arabic and African...and the mode of transport range from cars to donkeys, camels and 4WD vehicles.
We saw the camel and goat and wood markets and enjoyed the sunshine a little too much, since i burnt my arms and karl burnt his face, well nose and forehead
view of keren
. Has been lovely sitting on the roof of the hotel to ourselves looking out to Keren and the hills and all the mosques and churches surrounding us.We used our time in the coffee shops drinking very very very very sweet cappacino (more like latte) to charge our cameras and eat cake . Hard life eh.
We then walked in the scorching heat to the Baobab tree - what do they say about only mad dogs and white men walk in the midday sun?!? well after a 35 min walk in the scorching sun we ended up in a peaceful compound with an avenue of trees leading to an ancient tree that was carved out and made into a shrine. It is said to have hid some Italians from British planes in the war.
On our way back to Asmara to catch our plane to Djibouti we ended up joining a 4 hour bus queue. Here we learnt the art of queuing. You have to put your luggage next to and touching the persons in front. If you don't have any luggage you just use any old rubbish to keep your place e.g. empty bottles , cans etc. As seems to be the way here we ended up getting on the bus a little sooner than we should due to the kindness of the bus driver and put on the front seat.
