Visiting the Hottest Place On Earth

Visiting the Hottest Place On Earth

OPINION

From the Salt Lake situated more than 100 meters below sea level, to the Mars-looking landscape in Dallol to the most active volcano in the world, the Danakil Depression is indeed a very interesting, and exhausting place to visit, writes Mads Oddershede.

Ethiopia is a very diverse country with a large range of geological and cultural wonders. A number of these geological wonders are located in the north-eastern part of the country in the Afar region, to be more specific in the Danakil Depression. This is the hottest place on earth with an average temperature of around 35 degrees. The region is not only extremely hot with temperatures sometimes going above 50 degrees it is also very inhospitable, as you need to bring food, water and camping gear yourself. This makes the journey pretty tough. Additionally, an incident occurred in 2012 about 30 km from the Eritrean border. Gunmen killed five tourists, wounded two and kidnapped four as well. This doesn't really make the Danakil Depression seem very welcoming. I decided to go there anyway, not by myself, of course, but on a guided tour, as the possibility of seeing the world's most active volcano, and thus seeing real lava, was simply too tempting to resist. I must admit that before the trip I hadn't done much research on the Danakil Depression. I knew that the Erta Ale volcano was located there and that there was a Salt Lake, but I wasn't prepared for the extreme temperatures. I also hadn't given any thought to what our accommodation in the desert would be like and the extensive distances.

The tour was to take off in Mekele, but since I live in Addis Ababa, I needed to travel around 770 km just to get to the meeting point. Fortunately, two other tourists who were going on the same journey as me were also travelling from Addis with one of the tour-operator's drivers. Luckily there was an extra seat for me. The trip from Addis to Mekele goes through the mountains. This was really impressive, especially if you, like me, come from a country like Denmark, which is as flat as a pancake! The trip is at least a 10-hour drive and often more, as you may need to stop to let goats, sheep, donkeys or even camels cross the road. After a long day of driving, we stayed at a hotel for the night before joining the rest of the group the following morning.

The first day of the tour started off with all of us going to the remote village of Berhale for lunch before proceeding to our camp in an even more remote village called Hamedela. Along the way the temperature just kept rising until it hit 45 degrees. Although the car was air-conditioned, sweat kept running from my forehead! When we arrived in Hamedela we only had half an hour to unpack our stuff from the cars, put on some more sunscreen and, for me, exchange trousers for a pair of shorts as quickly as possible. Then we headed to see the famous salt lake, which lies 155 meters below sea level. It is one of the lowest lying places in the whole world. Near the salt lake, in a place called Asebo, a lot of mining takes place. This is where the mineworkers extract one of Ethiopia's few national resources: rock salt. The mineworkers simply crack out big blocks of salt and thereafter shape them into1-kilo blocks, which they then sell in the markets. Whilst walking barefooted on the Salt Lake with temperatures above 40 degrees, I tried to imagine how hard it must be to work for several hours every day in this heat. It will definitely make me appreciate the salt in the little bowl on the kitchen table a lot more in the future! After we'd walked around in the shallow water on the salt lake for a while it was time to head back to our camp in Hamedela, as we needed to prepare our beds before it got dark. We were going to sleep outside in the open air-something I've never tried before. Fortunately, because we were in the middle of nowhere, no mosquitos, flies or other bugs interrupted our night's sleep. But the temperature did. Even at night it was above 20 degrees and so I found it almost impossible to fall asleep. Sadly, it wasn't the last time we were going to sleep out in the open air on this trip.

We had to get up around 6 the following morning before it got too hot, so no sleeping in for me. After a quick breakfast we drove to Dallol to see the Mars-looking landscape formed by volcanic activity. I've never been to Mars but I imagine that it would look a bit like the landscape in Dallol. The ground is all red with small craters in a bright white colour of salt and other minerals that secrete the nasty smell of rotten eggs. Visiting Dallol definitely feels like coming to an alien planet. After starring at the amazing landscape and inhaling the bad smell, we proceeded to the next destination: to some hot springs located in the middle of nowhere in this never-ending desert in Danakil. The water in the springs is very good for your skin and with a temperature close to 50 degrees it could be tempting to go in for a short dip, but because of the high amount of sulphur in the water it is extremely toxic. Close to the springs lay dozens of dead birds that had been drinking from the water in the springs. They had immediately died. Not even beetles or other insects can survive drinking the toxic water that has a dark yellow colour. We didn't have that much time to spend at the springs though, as we had a long drive ahead of us to our accommodation for the night in a small town called Abaala. The drive took several hours but with a beautiful landscape and lots of twisting roads up and down the mountainside, the time went relatively fast. The next morning we were allowed to sleep "late" until 8 o'clock because we had a long drive and a 9-kilometre trek to the top of Erta Ale ahead of us. The drive itself wasn't actually that long, but because of the extremely rough landscape consisting of solidified lava, rocks and sand the 80 km distance took about 6 hours. When we finally made it to the camp it was time for another rest. But that rest got interrupted as a sandstorm suddenly occurred! A thunderstorm followed afterwards, although luckily it didn't reach our camp. It just remained on the horizon. After Mother Nature had flexed her muscles it was time for dinner before we trekked to the top of Erta Ale. It was dark at that time, so we needed a flashlight apart from the soldier who led the way. Apparently he could see in the dark. The trek took about four hours including some water breaks and when we finally made it to the top it was about midnight. Even though trekking was difficult at some times and our feet were sore, all our efforts were worth it in the end. The sight of the floating lava was spectacular. Erta Ale decided to put on a little show for us when she spat the 1500 degrees floating lava 10 meters up in the sky. It was absolutely magnificent. We spent the rest of the night near the crater of the volcano, sleeping just a few 100 meters away in the open air. Once again I didn't get any sleep, but because we had to leave at 4:30, the night didn't seem that long. I found the trek down from the volcano much more difficult than trekking to the top. This was mainly because my feet were by now extremely sore. Plus I had a blister on my right foot. When we got back to the campsite after our second 9-kilometre walk within 10 hours, it was finally time to go back home.

Although the trip was extremely hard, the feeling you have after you've done a tour is amazing. I experienced a lot of new things that I've never tried before, such as sleeping under the sky, trekking up and down a volcano and seeing real floating lava. When I look back at the trip I feel it was totally worth all the trouble. But visiting the Danakil Depression once is definitely enough for me!

Ed.'s Note: The writer is on an internship at The Reporter.