The road from Afabet to Nakfa is winding like all the other roads in this country. But in this sector it is so narrow and the village van is so bulging that you end up paying offering to all the temples back home in India. The people here are all tribal Muslims and they live in small stone huts without plastering. More important is the generator which is essential as this village has no electricity. Even a telephone is available in the village but it works on sunny days only as the power source is solar. You can_ft dial home directly either as it is a link system and it takes quite some time to connect to Asmara. But the telephone booth looks _ecrowded_f all the day as those who come in the morning wait the whole day to get connected. Once connected you can talk aloud but there is no guarantee of your message reaching the other end as the signals are often very weak.
You have to accommodate yourself with cattle and carry bags but you will reach Afabet within a few hours of comfortless travel. Afabet is the place where you have to show your patience. Transport to Nakfa is certainly available but you have to wait for one or two days.
Many village communities in India build their homes as near to each other as possible but this is not the case in Nakfa. Each tribal house is built on a separate hillock. The house is only one room made of stones and the roof is made up of corrugated sheets these days. There is a small enclosure outside every house which is used as a bathhouse. All chores of the home are done outside. In the evening all the cattle are simply put outside the hut without employing ropes, fences or identity tags. Water is not plenty but there are some tanks and streams where the animals crowd to quench their thirst. They all dry up in summer and the big camel population here depends upon cactus stalks for their water requirements. It is real fun to see the camel eating the cactus without harming itself with the very sharp thorn.
The people of Nakfa live in harmony with nature. They eat what they cultivate and drink what their cattle provides them. Coco Cola comes only once a month to the top of the hill and then there is real celebration around the truck. Everybody insists on finishing the whole load within the next few hours. You are reminded of the commercials of Coco Cola on the television. But then Eritrea is one country where the fanciful and the real meet each other. When you travel the spiral path down the plateau of Asmara, you can see the long Coco Cola truck climbing up the hairpin bends, just like their magazine ads.
Massawa road itself is an exotic experience where you _epass through three different climates_f. You start from Asmara with three layers of jackets and remove two of them in Nefasit and Ginda and finally walk around in your T-shirt when you finally reach the port city of Massawa on the red sea. The climate of Massawa rises up to 45 degrees whereas in Nakfa it tends to go below zero degrees at least in the month of January.