THE RED SEA

RIVIERA

            As the prisoners, dressed in old pink jump-suits, were led away at gunpoint, the judge surveyed his court. Here were people from every walk of Asmara life; lawyers leafing through statute books plundered, in 1991, from the retreating Ethiopians, turbaned Muslims and tattooed Coptics, businessmen, neatly dressed in cardigans and moccasins and embellishing their greetings with “ciao” and “scusi”, handsome russet-skinned women, soldiers in bits of everybody else’s uniforms and war veterans - “The Fighters” - who commanded the affection and respect of them all. Amongst them, he spotted me.

         “Welcome to Eritrea,” he said, “Can we do anything for you?”

         For a moment I was tempted to suggest that they could. The Eritreans were, I had decided, a truly remarkable phenomenon. These people had rolled back the greatest mechanised army in North Africa, starting out with home-made guns. 150,000 of them had died and a million became refugees. In peacetime, they had adapted to commerce (the biggest company, Red Sea Trading, grew out of an assassination unit, “09”) and created a tigerish economy often likened to adolescent Singapore’s. They provided tricycles for the 35,000 amputees and banknotes that could be read by the blind. Alone in war, they now eschewed foreign aid - although they retained a fondness for their old colonists, the Italians: they enjoyed cappuccinos, boggy pasta and old Italian translations of Nevil Shutes, but - in front of cameras - their faces were knotted and severe. That, it struck me, was how they wanted to be remembered. I thanked the judge and pointed out that I was just a visitor.

 

From the High Court, I walked down Liberty Avenue and found myself transported into an immaculate Italy of the 1930’s. Here were art deco pasticerias and latterias, bars called Imperio and Roma and a dazzling cinema that was screening “Robin Hood”. I found a grocery, stacked with tins of plums, cheeses, hams, pickles and strange bottles of sticky fluid labelled “Eritrean champagne” and I had my hair cut in a vast white vinyl chair made in Milano. A campanile invoked the faithful to Mass in Scanavini’s cathedral and Fiat cinquecentos still bombed around the palm trees, propelled by tiny purple explosions.

The boutiques now sold only plastic sandals, padlocks and axes but, at the Farmacia I found aftershaves which, I fancied, reflected the hopes and aspirations of returning heroes; “New Dollar”, “Manly Man”, “London”, “Nice”, and, intriguingly, “One Man Only”. Women, who had made up one-third of the guerrillas, may have had more practical matters in mind (“Fizz”, “Flight” and “Café”).

“Look,” said a palace guard, shouldering her Kalashnikov, “No wedding rings!” She wanted to travel, she said. We would live in Saskatchewan.

Before she could re-organise my life, I peeled myself away. I wandered on, past villas that still had “Attenti al cani” on the gate and a Fiat garage, minted 60 years ago from lime-green cement and now a turning-place for arebia carts. At the far end of this beautiful Mediterranean town, adrift 2400 metres above the Red Sea, I stumbled on a landscape of rusting armoured cars, tanks scooped out like beetle-shells and Russian trucks chewed up by gunfire: the Tank Cemetery. Something stirred in the carcass of a minibus and an army officer clambered out, dressed in a pink tracksuit and wellington boots. With exquisite politeness, he told me that I needed a permit.

“And on Sundays,” he added mysteriously, “You can only take three photographs.”

 

         I hired a driver called Takastay and early one morning, we set off for Massawa, 115km away down the Arborobli escarpment. The chilly, tufted desert around Asmara, denuded of greenery by goats and napalm, ended at an abrupt lip of cloud. We plunged downwards. The mist made everything oddly surreal; donkey trains, workgangs of beautiful women, magnificent Italian railway bridges steeped in weeds, the carapace of a tank, a valley of sumptuous fruit gardens and then, on the coastal plain, steam engines. Takastay said nothing except “I was born in 1991. That is when life began.”

 

         Despite bewildering bomb damage, I was enthralled by Massawa. Their deliverance from annihilation had given the Massawans a certain levity of touch and they were keen to share their euphoria. Though they lived in smashed-up Egyptian merchants’ houses, they built fancy dance-halls, like the “Sunshine Bar” and the “Holiday Hotel”, and played their music so loud that once again the buildings tottered. Some squatters showed me round the Banco di Roma, where they had made homes amidst the shrapnel-crazed marble, and Muchacho, an old, crippled Fighter took me round the dockside bars where his hair was ruffled by lovely creatures in long, sleek evening dresses.

         “Ethiopians.” He hissed, with cheerful mock-contempt, “Factories without chimneys.”

 

         I joined a boat out to the Dahlak Islands, an archipelago of coral biscuits that had been largely unvisited for 30 years. Porpoises came out to greet us and we moored at the Lull Hotel, a collection of chalets and shipping containers on the rocky, acacia-field shore. Below us, a fisherman arranged his nets in the turquoise water and a detachment of naval conscripts swam - singing - across the bay to an abandoned Soviet base.

 

         Back in Massawa, I hired a bicycle called “Happiness” and rattled between the city islands. I found Count Melotti’s exuberant villa, now inhabited by pelicans and ibis, and The Red Sea Hotel, that once held white-tie balls. I clambered into Haile Selassie’s domed palace, now torn open like an egg. Then, as the evening air crackled with bats, I zinged over to Salams, where the Muslims celebrated life in succulent dishes of groper fish, blasted in spices and flame-grilled in honey and limes.

         When the Massawans dragged their beds out into the lanes to sleep, I wobbled back to the Dahlak, my hotel. Despite its psoriatic paintwork, the bar was always lively, humming with foreign advisers, all wondering what on earth they could teach the Eritreans about anything.

 

 

Eritrea is currently served by Lufthansa (0345 737 747), Yemen Airways (0171 491 7186) and Egyptair (0171 580 4239) via Frankfurt, Yemen and Cairo respectively. There are no current restrictions on travel other than to the Ethiopian border, which is the subject of an on-going dispute. Visas, costing £20, can be obtained from the Eritrean Embassy (0171 713 0096).