Hamed Ela

I cannot really call it a road, the stretch we are driving from Dodom to Hamed Ela, our next destination. First we bounce back across the lava surface again, then we follow, well, the occasional track, or just the gut feeling of our road runner: as part of our obligatory team of support, we have a local Afar who knows how to get from A to B, and who knows when to take an alternative route because an earlier one becomes impassable - I don’t really know why the tracks change so frequently, allegedly every few weeks (or would this be another justification for employing a road runner?). Our driver clearly enjoys the opportunity of off-the-road driving, and seems to think he is competing in the Paris-Dakar rally; for us passengers it is slightly less convenient, and not really comfortable (and I cannot stop thinking that it is not really necessary either), but hé, did we want adventure travel or not? Small trees are flattened in the process, occasionally a whole village is covered in the cloud of dust we produce. We get stuck in the sand a few times, but not too badly, and each time we manage to get out again. I am more concerned that our road runner, who has now been joined by a second road runner, is lost himself in this endless stretch of nothingness, sand, sand dunes, and some greens. But then we get to the inevitable village again, or to a salty spring where hundreds of camels are drinking. And we hit something of a real road again. Miraculously, we have indeed found our next destination, Hamed Ela. Quite an achievement, given the size of Hamed Ela!!

(1, 2) dunes may well block the tracks to Hamed Ele, at anyone time

(3) but whatever happens, there is always a village, somewhere

(4, 5) camels drink from a salty pool, in the middle of the desert

The people of Hamad Ela earn their living from salt. The village and its 4000 inhabitants or so live at the edge of a huge salt lake, Lake Asale, which for most of its expanse is dry – it is hard to believe that this area is covered in water during the rainy season. Miners cut the surface, extract huge plates of salt, and then cut and shave them to a standard size that can be transported on camels and donkeys to the market at Berhale, two days trekking away (traveling by night only, during the day it is simply too hot to move). Each late afternoon, enormous camel caravans move from the lake, via Hamed Ela, a spectacular sight. And a few days later the caravans return, empty. But the miners stay, day in day out, spending the whole day under the burning hot sun, on a burning hot white salt plane. And it is not that salt is a rare and expensive commodity, here.

(6, 7) Lake Asale, the salt lake where it still has water

(8) and the rest of the lake, dried up

(9, 10) workers chopping blocks of salt of standard size, which can be loaded on the camels for transport

(11) some of those camels taking it easy, ahead of a long trail

(12, 13, 14, 15) and some pictures of the camel caravans - note that it doesn't work to get a hundred camels on one picture, but the groups depicted here are but very small parts of a huge caravan

Despite the hard life, and what is more, despite the fact that every tourist who visits Danakil spends at least one, and more often two nights camping in Hamed Ela, the Afar people here are as nice as their brethren from Assaita, welcoming, friendly. They may have a ferocious history, yet, they smile, and they are genuinely welcoming. So it is possible, in Ethiopia. Our mandatory Afar guide treated us to a cold Coke, something he didn’t really had to do – I mention it because it hasn’t happened often in the past eight weeks that somebody did something for us without ulterior motive.

Lake Afrera

(you may have noticed, the last few days, that it is just very dificult to produce colourful photographs in this environment, so you'll have to do with mostly brown, black and grey, for a little longer...)

Where we had expected to enter a set of vague desert tracks into the Danakil area, a clearly signposted turn-off from the main Djibouti road points to a new tarmac road all the almost 200 km to Afrera. Progress is unstoppable, that’s clear. The road provides access to the Afrera Lake, a huge expanse of salt water in the middle of nowhere. Well, except that on the edge of the lake another salt works has developed. With the salt works, a village has developed, too, all corrugated iron and bamboo mats, and satellite dishes. We have reached the end of the world several times already, this trip, but here is definitely another one.

(1, 2) salt works at the edge of the lake

(3) and a jetty and hose that transports salt ater into the shallow ponds

(4) of course, there are also birds at the lake edge, but somehow they share in the absence of colour, here

(5, 6, 7) and Afrera, the village, the pits, really, is just as colourless, grey, with very few exceptions

On the way, lunar landscape – if they have volcanoes on the moon. The road goes through never-ending packages of basalt, stack after stack after stack, occasionally interspersed by a dry wadi, or the occasional sandy patch. I have never seen anything like this, for hours on end. At one time we are driving near the centre of a volcano, long ago blown away: what is left are the lava streams, clearly having flowed in a radial pattern away from the core: textbook stuff. Another area is covered by a thin lava package, its surface looking more like torn-up asphalt, something like a huge bombed airfield, or so. Surely, nothing can survive here.

(8, 9) the landscape on the way to the lake, variations in black and grey, including lava surfaces that look like torn-up asphalt

(10) yet, even here you'll find the occasional bird

Wrong, of course. Even in this absolutely deserted landscape small hamlets exist, along the road, the standard round huts, sometimes with a base of rocks. In other places the traces of abandoned villages are evident from the round animal pens of basalt blocks that once contained goats or camels. Some of these villages also have traces of an old school, once built by the government, but not enough of an attraction for villagers to stay. Imagine the capital destruction, building a new school building every few years – many of these villages apparently move every 2 to 5 years, due to lack of rain, or exhaustion of the scarce water sources that, however unbelievable in sounds, still seem to be around here, somewhere.

(11, 12) and even here, there are people living, in the small round huts

To be fair, not everybody survives, and the countryside is dotted with graves. Here they don’t bury the dead, they cover them with rocks, and build a tomb-like structure on top.

(13) burial ground with graves of important people, suggested by the size of the tombs

There are also two more permanent settlements, aptly called “60” and “140”, after the number of kilometers from the main road. In fact “140”,is only 130 km from the main road, thanks to the new tarmac road taking a shorter route than the old gravel road. I have no idea what these people are doing here, apparently they are involved in the usual Afar activities, herding cattle, camels and goats, and perhaps a little trading, too, but how you keep some 5000 people – allegedly the population of “60” – busy here, it beats me.

(14, 15) the settlements "60" and "140" - or the other way around, I cannot remember, and it doesn't make a lot of difference

Anyhow, we ended up in Afrera. And although the village is the pits, really, the camping side on the shores of the lake with the same name is absolutely divine, under a few palm trees, next to a hot spring. Finally, we have hot water again!

(16) sulphur spring at the edge of Lake Afrera, hot water for our camping site!

Dichioto

If Assaita is the end of the world, what must we call Dichioto? Seldom have I seen a more desolate town, consisting of two rows of corrugated-iron buildings – walls and roof, and almost no other building materials used – lining the main Djibouti road. In fact, most of the buildings, a selection of sleazy bars and restaurants, and the occasional very basic hotel, are hardly visible, because truck after truck is parked, on both sides. Yet, some people have taken the trouble to paint their sheds in bright colours, or with flowers, to make it look a little more attractive. They failed, but I do appreciate the effort.

(1, 2) the landscape in the northern Afar region: basalts and more basalts

(3) the police have listed the help of local artists to boost their numbers...

(4, 5, 6) Dichioto is built off corrugated iron houses, nothing else; some take the trouble to paint them, others don't. In most cases it makes no difference, because the view is usually blocked by parked trucks on both sides of the road

Past Dichioto is the so-called Eli Dar salt lake, a flat expanse in between stacks of black lava flows. Well, salt lake it isn’t, in fact there are salt works as far as the eye can see. Water is being pumped from 10 meter deep canals, which seem to refill overnight from surface seepage, into shallow square basins, of perhaps 50x50 meters. This is then being evaporated – no lack of natural heat here! - to leave a flat of loose salt, which is scooped into colourful bags for transport. The potential, in this hottest of hot regions, is enormous, and there are indeed hundreds, if not thousands, of basins, but most are empty, not being used. I am not sure why, lack of water, or lack of man power, or just lack of incentive. Further away, in the Danakil area, salt is being mined in huge blocks, from real salt lakes, which may be difficult to compete against?

(7) the salt works, neat little rectangular basins, and (8, 9) the harvest, packed in colourful bags - the only colour in a vast grey environment

(10, 11) donkey carts and camels remain the preferred means of transport, even though water - fresh water - is not easy to find. camels, however, can tolerate a certain amount of salt in the water

(12) mud cracks, makes for a pretty picture

 (13) the ground is often so hard that people cannot be burried, instead rock graves are built on top of the dead body