where exactly is Eritrea?

I think there was more confusion amongst my friends and colleagues at my choice of Eritrea for a holiday than for anywhere else I have travelled to.  At least when I went to Chad, and the DRC, people knew where those countries were (even if they wondered why I might want to go there), but my mention of Eritrea brought many puzzled looks, one person even asking me if it was a Caribbean island...

Whilst I did know where the country was located, I should admit that I knew very little about the history of the place.  I didn't know that it had been colonised by the Ottomans, then the Egyptians, the Italians, and the British (briefly) before it came under Ethiopian rule in 1961.  I didn't know that not one country, whether from the West or from the Eastern bloc, supported them in their fight for independence.  & I didn't know that the Italians had built them the longest cable car in the world (at nearly 72km long) that was able to transport 30 tons of material every hour between the port city of Massawa and the capital Asmara - nor that the British dismantled it as 'war reparations', putting the parts to use in other parts of our then Empire.

It was interesting to learn all this whilst seeing remnants of Ottoman buildings in Massawa (alongside extensive war damage) as well as the Italian art deco architecture in Asmara and Keren.

The Fiat Tagliero building is of course the famous one, but I decided to share instead a pic of the main street of Asmara - a general view of art deco buildings, palm trees and tidy pavements - just to try to give an idea as to how unlike Africa the place seems.  It is also the sixth highest capital city in the world (at some 2,300m) and so is surprisingly cold once the sun has gone down.  But the remnants of the Italian occupation mean that warming plates of pasta, and cups of cappuccino, are easy to find!

The country is quite rugged, with mountains and gorges and some quite dramatic views.  Lots of cacti.  As for architecture, as well as the art deco stuff, it has old ruins, remnants from the period of the Aksumite empire (around 750BC) - stelae and walls ... the majority of it still unexcavated.  It would be a good place for a walking holiday, although the logistics are hard right now as a permit is needed for every place you go outside of the capital, with no flexibility available so you cannot decide you like somewhere and will stay there for an extra night.

The other thing I really loved about my trip was all the camels, especially the camel market in Keren.  Of course camels are by no means unique to Eritrea, but really - you can never take enough camel photos, can you?