Eritrea is a very young country. The long war of independence from Ethiopia is just over a decade ago and right now the country is in the throws of a major upgrade in infastructure.

Eritrea was part of the Italian empire built by Mussolini in the early days of the facists. He saw it as the African Riviera and spent vast amounts of money building up the capital, Asmara, and a spectacular rail line to the coastal port of Masawa.

Keren is Eritrea's third city. It is ringed with mountains and still boasts much of the art deco inspired architecture of the Italians. The hotel from which this photo is taken may be a fading beauty, but one can imagine what it was once like.

Keren has been the scene of two famous battles - one between the British and the Italians in the '40s that was particularly savage and a second, much quicker battle when the Eritreans defeated the Ethiopians.

This pic was taken early morning with my little 2MP snapper. Wish I had my CP5700 back then!

I think this will be the last photo to post from my old Lumix. The tigers meet is a picture that follow up my serie of this beautyful ethinc group in Eritrea. The Tigers meet depicts one of those cultural moments, of course women where not part of it but I believe and I wish that in a different way from our (western) they do have something to say, I don't know the reason for this gathering but I could feel the laid back atmosphere, the heat of the Northern Red Sea Province and the dust almost covering my face.

Tom Gething

Hi there! I am back from a one week holyday in Italy. I bought a new camera there...a Nikon D-80 so I am just now a happy man. I took over 1000 pictures and I will share some of theme with you pretty soon.

Today I am posting the Keren sunset. I was sitting in the hotel and went up to the roof to investigate if there was by any chance good light for shoting..I was fortunate because there was a little spot beyond the mountains. This little spot looks much more extended in the photo than what it was in reality. I used all the extension of my zoom in order to capture this one.

I hope you like it

cheers
 

After a two hours trip east of Keren, in the middle of the Roara Mountains (middle of nowhere)the fog appeared out of nowhere. The rainy season have been the best in Eritrea for the last three years, something good for this arid country.
I took this one from the car. The original is a colour one, I converted it to B&W and applied a red filter effect.

Rolando Wallusche Saul