Eritrea's second largest city, surprisingly full of color and a dream to photograph. We visited during the city's lively market day where women were out in full force draped in every color of the rainbow.

Not too long after leaving Asmara we start to see traditional African circular-style homes on the drive to Keren. Eritrea has nine distinct ethnic groups and quick changes in housing style and clothing are fairly common as one crisscrosses the country from one region to the next.

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Keren's sprawling weekly market.

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Camels bring wood to sell at Keren's weekly market.

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Eye-popping color at Keren's weekly market.

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Keren's gorgeous blue-domed Catholic cathedral.

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Not far away from the Catholic cathedral is this mosque. Eritrea has many problems, but one area where they can teach the rest of the world something is how peacefully Christians and Muslims coexist in this country. All major cities in Eritrea are dotted with both churches and mosques, and adherents to both religions can go about their business without fear of violence from the other side.

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Very graphic propaganda mural depicting Eritrean forces battling against the Ethiopian evil doers in their war for independence.

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I always enjoy photographing people ignoring signs encouraging them to work harder. :)

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Keren's Italian cemetery, final resting place for Italian soldiers killed in WWII fighting against the British. One thing noticed right away was that the Italian graves had the names of the actual soldiers buried beneath, while the graves of the local Eritreans were simply marked "Ascaro Ignoto," meaning Unknown Soldier.

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Keren city suburbs.

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Annual pilgrimage that the locals make to St Maryam Dearit, a Catholic shrine near Keren. The sign out front says, "The Shrine of Our Lady of Dearit is a place of sacred prayer and of retreat and not a place of entertainment or scenery for taking photos." Oops.

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People of all ages come to kiss and touch the face of St Mary.

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A fertility cult is associated with this ancient baobab tree at the shrine.
Here, a local girl touches her forehead to the tree in quiet prayer.

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Discarded military hardware was a pretty common sight on the drive between Asmara and Keren. One must not forget that their war for independence ended only 26 years ago, so I imagine it will take a lot more time to clean up all the evidence of the fighting. Most of the tanks we saw were in fields in the middle of nowhere or stuck in the bottom of crevasses; this tank was particularly interesting because it was in the middle of a roadside village so we just had to stop and take some pictures.