mpkz

Hey, sorry, missed your post.

Here are my tips/a brief trip report:

Immigration took a long time on arrival but was pretty straightforward. You pay the $70 you're supposed to pay and get a receipt saying you paid $50 (TIA). There is a small money changer at the airport, but that's pretty much it for arrivals. No WiFi or anything like that.

After getting my bag and skipping the customs line (which was full of Eritrean ladies with HUGE bags just full of cigarettes from Dubai), I went just outside the airport. From there, you have shared taxis to town (150 nfa I think, though I may have misinterpreted what the lady said and it might be the price for a private taxi as it's quite expensive). I skipped the shared taxis and took bus #1 , which left from the left side of the area and only cost 2 nfa. I didn't really know where the bus was going other than that it was going to get me fairly close to the center of town and there everything is walkable.

For the first three nights I stayed at Crystal Hotel. It was decent. It's central, internet worked (slowly, but that will be the case in every hotel including Asmara Palace), there was hot water with weak pressure and the hotel was clean and comfortable enough. The price is $60 if you pay there and a little bit more if you pay on booking.com. They can change money at the official rate at the reception. Note: change money in small increments, you can change money at most even outside Asmara and more importantly, you cannot change money back from nfa to anything so any leftover cash is wasted.

Tekeste at Asmara Grande (who got me my visa) recommended Khartoum Hotel in the center and actually got them to show me a room. It looked very similar to Crystal Hotel and only cost 250 nfa per night, so if you want to save money, consider going there. WiFi is the same speed everywhere - I think the main difference between Crystal and Khartoum is that with Khartoum I wasn't sure if they had generators like Crystal did (you had semi-frequent powercuts) and I just thought changing for one night (I had booked Crystal for the first two and would go to Massawa for the fourth) wasn't worth the trouble.

You can get permits for Massawa and others from the Tourism Ministry Information Office opposite to the cathedral. My Massawa permit took 3 days but that may just be because I said I planned to travel there 4 days later, I think they may be able to rush it (others have reported same day). I'm not really a foodie so I can't say much about the food except that it gets very tiring fast - in Asmara you basically have three choices - national food (injera + stuff), Italian food (great pizza and not so great pasta) and fast food (things they call hamburgers which don't resemble ours but are cheap and tasty). I liked the restaurant Ghigabo. I think there is one (expensive) Indian place as well and a Chinese place, but other than that not much. In Massawa you can get fish.

I also traveled to Massawa, Parterre is correct about the ride and wait times but has the prices wrong. The bus costs either 50 nfa (private minibus) or 31 nfa (government big bus). You don't really have a choice as to which one you will take because typically there will only be one bus at the station at a time. Arriving at the station at around 10-11am in Asmara I immediately found a minibus that was almost ready to leave (but I skipped it because it was too uncomfortable in a normal seat and just took a better seat on the next one which filled up in about 30 mins) whereas in Massawa we had to wait over an hour for a big bus to show up. If there is no bus at the station, try to find a line of bags / bottles. Put your bag or a bottle or some placeholder in the line to secure your seat on the bus. I think this is more of an issue on the big buses than minibuses. The ride takes about 4 hours including a break and I found no difference in the speed of the private and government bus. I didn't have any issues with people trying to scam me - Eritreans are super friendly and hospitable and usually someone on the bus will make sure that no one gets greedy. I had some guy ask me for 10 nfa for putting my bag on the roof of the bus, I just said no, we joked about it etc.

Massawa is basically unbearable now with the heat and humidity, I only stayed a day (whereas Asmara is very pleasant excluding the occasional thunderstorm). In Massawa I stayed at Grand Dahlak Hotel, which was ok. The bus station is about 2.5km from the main hotels, and in the 40c heat the walk was painful. On the way back, I took a minivan taxi (6 nfa + 3 nfa for my bag, which was what a local told me, though another said it should be 3 nfa), a private taxi will be super expensive (probably around 150+). The price for a room with a single bed is like $43, there is WiFi (some have reported that it's only in the reception area, that is not true, my room had WiFi, but it could be that some rooms do not). The room had a working fan and air conditioner and was otherwise ok. Bathroom wasn't clean but not disgustingly dirty either, just sort of worn down. You can walk through Massawa in a few hours easily.

I spent my last night at the Asmara Palace (so I could walk to the airport), which was ok. The rooms are bigger, water pressure is higher (after some initial sputtering) and in general it looks like a regular business hotel that's just been poorly maintained. $135 per night, $10 for airport transport though they offered that to me for free (I still preferred to walk).

Some tips that are probably too late for you:
Bring all toiletries you need into the country. Basically the only thing you can buy there is handsoap and even midrange hotels like Crystal or Grand Dahlak will only have little bars of soap. Wikianos Supermarket on Harnet Avenue sells shampoos... for about $10. Sunscreen etc., just forget about it, you will not find it in the country. Toothpaste I didn't look for but you might be able to find (given that that's something the locals actually need).