Filfil

Filfil is the green belt on the eastern escarpment, the one place in Eritrea where mist forest survives. The road out of Asmara drops from the highland plateau towards the coastal plain in a series of hairpins, and in sixty kilometres it passes through a change of two thousand metres and every vegetation belt in between. Where the cloud catches the slope there are figs, wild olives and creepers, with vervet and hamadryas baboons in them and a bird list that brings people out from the capital. It is a day out from Asmara and has no accommodation of its own.