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.

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

Afar country

Afar country – including the Danakil Depression, or Danakil Desert, it goes by several names – has been described as a pretty lawless region. Banditry is rife. In the 1930s, when Wilfred Thesiger became the first Westerner to enter the Aussa Sultanate in the heart of the Afar area, the survival rate of Westerners (in those days Africa wasn’t yet flooded with Chinese) in Afar country was rather low. Thesiger had done his homework, and found that an 1875 Egyptian army expedition led by a Swiss mercenary had been exterminated, as had been two Italian expeditions in 1881 and 1884. A 1930 party saw several servants massacred, but the British expedition leader survive, and Greek traders had been killed there in 1932. Despite all this evidence, Thesiger sets out into the Danakil Region in 1933, officially to discover the course of the Awash River, which seemed to disappear in the desert somewhere near Eritrea, but in reality more for the thrill of the unknown, the longing for travel hardships, and perhaps to be able to say afterwards: I have done it. He does recognize that “all that mattered to these people was to kill, how they did so had little significance”; the Danakil, too, castrate their victims as proof of having killed a man, like their southern cousins the Adermen I wrote about earlier. And he has plenty of apprehensive moments during his trip, when passing through a narrow gorge ideal for an ambush, or when camping, surrounded by more than 200 Afar warriors. However, he has the advantage of being accompanied by several important Danakil headmen, and they seem to have been able to secure safe passage through this inhospitable area.

After a few false starts, forcing him to return to Addis Ababa, it took Thesiger two months to travel from Awash to Aussa, and another to travel beyond the salt lakes at the Djibouti border to the coast.

We drove to Assaita, which is where the Aussa sultanate was some 80 years ago, in a day.

Thesiger probably had the more impressive experience, but we did enjoy the trip, too. By now, there is a road from Awash all the way to the port city of Djibouti, likely the best maintained tarmac road in the entire country. This is the import and export lifeline for landlocked Ethiopia, import mostly, because many of the trucks driving north are empty; many have stacked their trailer onto the truck. The heavy traffic makes plenty of victims, in the form of dead goats, some dead gazelles, even a dead camel – and a dead vulture nearby, obviously didn’t get away fast enough. I imagine that victimhood will be extended to humans, too, seeing the many overturned trucks along the road, not surprising given the way the truckers drive. They see nothing wrong in overtaking a slower truck going uphill, even if they cannot see what is on the other side of the bend ahead.

Right, that is what we didn’t enjoy; what we did enjoy was the hauntingly black volcanic landscape, turning increasingly dry the further north we come. The vegetation, if there is any at all, is low acacia trees and shrubs, the ones with sharp needles capable of penetrating a car tire. The only viable business seems to be charcoal production, although occasionally, closer to the river, the land turns into wetland which allows for some agriculture, and for bamboo to be grown, used for mats. For the rest, large areas are entirely empty, no people, no animals – and then, suddenly, there are a few huts again, quite similar to the small round huts that I earlier described as “typically Somali”. Perhaps they are more typically Afar? No idea why these people are here. No idea what they are doing here. A few kilometers further, a camel train crosses the road, well over 200 camels, probably. But for most of the road, basalts dominate. Hard to believe that this is where – as the Ethiopians claim – “it all began”: this is where in 1974 the then-oldest hominid fossil, 3-4 million years old Lucy (after She who was in the Sky with Diamonds) was found. The fact that there are now quite a few older fossils does not diminish the Ethiopian enthusiasm for Lucy, even though, I have been told, there is absolutely nothing to be seen at the site (I didn’t go and check).

Near Gewane there is the Mount Ayelu volcano, right next to the road almost, beautifully showing ancient lava flows on its slopes. It all adds to an unforgiving, hot landscape where you don’t want to get stuck. It puts Thesiger’s achievement into some perspective.

(1, 2) typical landscape in Afar country - we'll see more of this in the next few days

(3) charcoal is big business, and probably only business for many

(4) although in the scarce wetter areas bamboo mats are also being produced

(5, 6) "in the middle of nowhere" redefined

(7, 8) and out of nowhere comes a herd of camels crossing the road, casually being guarded by a few AK47-toting Afars

(9) and the first of many volcanoes, this is Mount Ayelu