Visiting This Country Is Like Going Back In Time! 🇪🇷 (#175)

Kim and welcome it's one of the world's least visited countries Eritrea today I'm going to finish my tour around Eritrea we're going to see what the rest of the country looks like these rail tracks right here were built by the Italians 100 years ago and for the most part they are no longer operational it's funny cuz this region being extremely mountainous reminds me a lot of like the Alps you know Switzerland Northern Italy look at that Echo and there's a very long shaft oh yeah yeah that's why it's hard to remember it's hard to prounce mer mer mer okay this is my guide Mar he's going to be joining me in my trip around errea uh as a foreigner in errea you are not allowed to leave the capital city of asara without a guided tour so that's what I'm doing what he's got a big ass oh yo-yo mango only drink she has is the one thing I'm allergic to mangoes yes I know that's weird so we're slowly driving down the mountains towards the coast and the Red Sea my guide was telling me that these towns that were encountering along the way they originally built by the Italians as like a junction point the Italians were trying to work their way up and eventually conquer Ethiopia which they never fully managed to do I mean they did take over in uh the 1930s for a while but that was like 5 years but these little settlements that they built eventually turned into little towns now it's just errans who live here otherwise I can't really see any reason why a town would organically develop out here so we've reached the port town of masawa techn Tech Al the second biggest city in irraa with like 30,000 people and the climate has changed completely erria has some really weird geography back in asara up in the mountains the weather's pretty nice it's temperate beautiful weather during the morning and night but here near the coast as you can see over there it's a desert you almost can't grow anything there's very little rainfall throughout the year and it's very very hot to the point where need to go get some water hold [Music] on so water is more expensive than beer in arrea he just told me that because all the water in arrae is imported ends up being more expensive than anything else so this is an interesting little place people will come here to drink coffee during the day they got some bottles of liquor over here it turns into a bar at night people come to watch sports games and this is the best part of all a semi-preserved outdoor movie theater built by the Italians there's even an upper deck guess where the VIPs coming to see the movie maybe muscolini would have been sitting right over here okay made it to my hotel that over there is the Red Sea first time I've ever seen it my um my guide who was a very difficult name to pronounce has recommended that I take a siesta for the next few hours until it cools down here in the city and uh that's probably a good idea cuz this is as hot as Satan's mataco out here I can feel the heat stroke coming on already I'm apparently the only tourist in this hotel which is interesting in fact looking across the street to that hotel with the shutters falling off the window I might be the only tourist in this entire city you want to see my hotel room this miraculously has the first air conditioner I've seen in either Ethiopia or arria God I love that thing this place is an oasis this are some Thin ass pillows even the pillows are melting out here my bathroom does not appear to be female friendly however luckily for you the Italians did introduce a Beday culture to the region scratch that nothing for you all right I guess I'll hang out for the next few hours maybe watch some aitran state run TV and uh we'll go out and do some exploring well TV doesn't seem to be working I guess I'll startare wall for the next few hours first Nera in arra this time with [Music] [Applause] fish and over here we have a community viewing of uh primers ship we've lost the [Music] feet good morning from the Red Sea in rraa love how these old train tracks are everywhere here's something else that's interesting this Palace behind me was originally built by the Egyptians who occupied arrea before the Italians came and it later became a palace of haly CI remember him literally a God among men the ultimate hero a Divine being somebody that people actually worshiped well here in arrea they view him very differently you just see all the bullet holes over here and imagine the fighting that took place when Haley cesi tried to Annex Eritrea into Ethiopia that kicked off what was known as the 30 Years War a group of aitran Freedom Fighters sprung up and they battled the Ethiopian military for control of the country I don't understand why they leave this building in this condition [Applause] though [Music] okay [Music] [Laughter] okay bye bye bye finally found some Chinese employees of a Chinese State own company the Chinese are here do some mining in rraa and when I've heard they're helping to build some infrastructure in exchange still getting the same funny responses whenever I say I'm American never gets up so we're now walking into the old town of masawa and this is a very interesting place originally it was the Ottoman Turks who settled masawa they wanted to Port on the Red Sea later the Italians arrived and when they started to build buildings here in masawa they kind of imitated the style Al okay so apparently what some shop owners will do here is they'll be selling coffee right on the street and it's free and that's a way to bring you inside and inside is like a bar or something like that and that's where you're really going to spend your Mone okay okay and kind of forgot her name sorry SM okay it's the same tradition in both Ethiopia and erria she heats up the coals to make the coffee then once it's already Smoky she sends it over to you so you can get like a whiff it's a tradition you got to do it now we got the popcorn itself I still don't know how in this culture popcorn and coffee became a thing but America USA USA yeah where New York New York yeah you are from masawa Mafia place oh yeah Mafia place yes I have gun I have gun watch out maswa is at place okay masawa no Mafia yeah nobody okay just nice people okay that's good anywhere you could die anywhere don't know where he got that conception of America from but not too far from the truth man craziest thing about this place is the war with Ethiopia was 30 years ago at least the fighting in masawa was 30 years ago but this this place looks like more of a war zone than than tigai did when I was just there the war tigai was last year these piles of rubble right here are actually from destroyed houses from 30 years ago hi how do you take the water oh water comes from here MBA MBA oh okay and then you clean okay okay statistically irraa is one of the poorest countries in the world not making a value judgment on that but I was told that most people here don't even buy a bottled of water just get water from the tap or stream put some chlorine in it drink it like that and it's just crazy to think going back over 100 years ago these buildings they were owned and lived in by rich businessmen from Italy before that rich businessmen from the Ottoman Empire and now most of them are abandoned all right now it's errans who live in them which is a good thing but man my God told me this place used to look very different has a really weird kind of beauty though a weird post-apocalyptic kind of beauty your bait yeah okay where's where's the Italian Banky the bank Italian Bank bank of Italy h b yeah is my Italia it's your bank okay where's Bank old bank is destroyed Bank bank yeah Bank Italia Bank Italia you know where the bank is B yet now okay come from America USA yeah beautiful Sal Salam Salam okay oh oh right here right here okay okay wow thank you thank you wow this is wild this is the former bank of Italy I guess this was the financial center of the aat train Colony when the Italians were here and it must have still been an important building when the Ethiopians took over not the most intense security right there actually the only thing stopping me from filming at the moment is the fact that all my devices are overheating due to this intense Heat this is such a wild thing have all these beautiful buildings here they've been sitting here for literally 30 years haven't been renovated made no effort to try and fix them up not even any squatters here or anything like that 30 years ago in the final battle between the Ethiopians and the atrans the battle that effectively gave errans their independence the Ethiopian Army H up here the former bank of Italy and this was like their final stronghold the Ethiopians were told that if they surrendered the air TRS would kill them all so they fought to the very last man got like the old Vault right here guess this is where the Italians kept all their gold back in the day was still the gold standard you know currencies weren't pegged to the dollar yet I've tried to ask around and figure out why hasn't this place been renovated this is like a potential tourist Gold Mine Europeans love Beaches they love old looking cities like this they would come here and droves well hopefully if any good comes from the T War ending and they're finally being pieace between Ethiopia and Atria Eritrea can stop spending their entire Budget on the military spend some money fixing this place up Tran yeah yeah oh yeah my friend again New City New York City yeah you remember nice you live here yeah yeah where did you learn English I'm Le in my school in your school okay that's great it's um what do you do here I do a job my job in the port in the port okay oh you help with the ships yeah okay now eia now Ethiopia no no more Ethiopia no more Ethiopia I know yeah yeah I like a yeah okay you take care byebye and here we are after a month in Ethiopia and arria this is my first time reaching the coast it's my first time seeing water over there is the port of masawa and this is the real reason why Ethiopia fought Eritrea for so long this is why Ethiopia desperately wanted to keep erria part of their territory the Italians wanted a port on the Red Sea and so did the Ethiopians if you look at a map you'll notice that Ethiopia is completely landlocked it might be the most significant completely landlocked country in the world with a population of what do they have like 130 million people constantly growing oh my God I don't know if you can see the sweat just pouring off me here but it's 9:00 a.m. and it's like 40° out here with very high humidity this has to be the most scorching place I've ever been in my life this is a water bottle thought my guide and driver was uh knocking off a beer before we start it off got some beans and eggs almost a Mexican breakfast right here just need a shout of tequila so we were on our way back to asara and then our car broke down now we're going to take a BS all the way back it's an interesting region that the car broke down in a lot of the people that live out here are desertic nomads go from one place to another bus dropped us off the next town so this is your brother brother-in-law okay why do we do this this one yeah when the car Heats what do you put water put water cool so we co so we are we are overheating overheating yeah I can agree with that makes sense [Music] that's icy that's way more cold than I expected okay first beer of the [Music] roacha that's Mara beer oh that's smart you like you got like a beer bucket right there [Music] this is why it's better to travel with the local in Africa okay always got to sniff the beans your first round oh yeah three rounds we got three rounds okay how do you say mother in so what do I say to her what do I say to her okay sorry I do like the Ingenuity of people here got like a little farm going here this is a very arid region apparently there like a little aquafer cows also a little papay tree right in the front yard it's okay no problem okay [Music] [Applause] okay yeah [Music] apparently somebody just got married yes ah yes I understand oh sh just got the show real Africa it's kind of like America in like the 19 1950s not in a bad way more in like a you know children had freedom to go running around playing in the streets we didn't uh helicopter parent our kids as much guess that's a good and a bad thing all right our tow is finally here 12 hours later after what was supposed to be about a 3-hour trip we finally back in Asar the capital city so we're now on our way to the camel Market of erra they have it every Monday [Music] kind of feel like I've stumbled into most is or something like that you take as okay if you look on a map you'll see that Eritrea is actually very close to the Middle East as in you could take a small boat and get to Yemen within an hour maybe a couple of hours so basically the Middle Eastern influence on arria is very strong you got him okay take get out of in addition to that rraa has a border with Sudan apparently is where most of these camels are going to be sold [Applause] are as a New Yorker this has to be about the most foreign thing I could possibly go to so $100 $50 900 900 900 900 uh kna 950 that's like $90 is that a good price for a goat how much are the camels 1,000 is 15,000 1,000 us 50,000 wow okay and they were telling me they'll like sell them as meat in Sudan they also good for they used to go also to countries Emirates they very agile all right let's get out of there before we catch the bonic plague or something in 1936 right before World War II the Italians on a Bonita musolini conquered Ethiopia and of course they already held erria but during the War the British came and fought the Italians in this town Ken this is where the decisive battle to take back Eritrea from the Italians took place over the course of just a few months the British defeated the Italians here in Karen and the surrounding areas the Italians surrendered asara and they also surrendered all of Ethiopia which they had just taken you see asaro Ino asaro Ino means sold their unknown that means they didn't have any bdge all good morning interestingly Haley cesi the former Emperor of Ethiopia God of all Rastafarians and the future Terrorizer of eritreans according to them he actually took refuge in the UK during the war and after the British defeated the Italians haly cesi returned to Ethiopia and took over his role as the emperor of the country the history of this region there something else brand one brand one very cheap okay you American yes you're American yes which one state New York New York New York is too too too rich huh too rich just yeah New York uh yeah they got tooo much money yes New York is too much the richest nation from America someday rraa will be rich over there in New York after maybe some changes this uh katholiki yeah most of the Christians in Ethiopia and erria are Orthodox they' got their own thing going on as you saw with the Mescal celebration but when the Italians came unsurprisingly they tried to turn some of them into Catholics this neighborhood used to be the Italian epicenter of Karen Karan is another small City in arria Italians liked it cuz the land was more fertile and apparently that across the street was another old Cinema that's a very loud diesel generator going off apparently used to be the headquarters of an Italian company now it is who knows but the front door was open got the par mats right here and up there you have a bird nest meanwhile you have more bullet holes right here probably from the conflict with the Ethiopians right behind the fancy Italian homes small more traditional erran ones and a dirt road what is this GYN oh it's a gymnasium okay an old Italian gymnasium and back here got a graveyard of old Italian buses maybe it's not a graveyard but some of those definitely don't look operational okay didn't find any gym in there or maybe it's behind a lock door or something I don't know but there's another interesting repurposing of an old Italian building and there's an old Italian car well that's been our tour around arat tra about to get back on the road head back to the capital city of bamara and maybe once we get back there I'll give you my final thoughts on arra it's been an interesting trip all right back in asara the capital city that's a sign advertising condoms air train condos it's been a very interesting trip I got to say I think it's been one of my favorites all year despite of having basically no Wi-Fi and no access to foreign currency literally you have to bring all the money that you're going to use into the country there's no ATMs with that said maybe things are getting better if the number one concern of Eritrea was that Ethiopia was going to invade them well there's currently a big truce between Ethiopia and Eritrea and meit I think I'm pronouncing that right my guide says that changes are on the away it's becoming easier to get an internet connection in your home although I haven't seen that anywhere personally uh supposedly ATMs will be coming to the country soon and most importantly for anyone watching this it's getting slowly easier to get a visa for arria and come and travel here nio still can't get over it like on average the only foreigners that a trains will see are like Chinese workers so now they started thinking that every Foreigner is Chinese and they speak Chinese oh this country anyway I don't know how to end this video aatr is complex I guess I'll see you somewhere else in the world maybe another country in Africa or maybe outside of Africa not really sure see you next time CIA

Channel: Sabbatical

Views: 280,244

Keywords: sabbatical, polyglot, eritrea, eritrea vlog, north korea, north korea of africa, massawa, keren, vlogger, adventure, off the beaten path, ethiopia, italy, war

Id: dfVcnfaVKnI

Length: 35min 7sec (2107 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 12 2024