Thurs Fri 30 31 Jan 2014 (22 23 Tir 2006) The Danakil Depression

Thurs Fri 30 31 Jan 2014 (22 23 Tir 2006) The Danakil Depression Why did we say yesterday that our hotel was adventure-travel central? During the short period when we hung out at the computer terminal on the 2nd floor, we ran into Germans, Poles, Aussies. We spoke with a woman from Hong Kong, who was doing the northern circuit in counter-clockwise order. A group of 6 young Japanese jocks, all busy with their electronic devices, gave Carol second thoughts. Could we possibly keep up with hikers like these? For breakfast at 7:30 AM we went to Green Valley Cafe, a spiffy looking spot, all white and shiny black. It was across from Belleview and a few meters down the street. We ordered a cheese omelet, and then noticed something under the Local Specialties part of the menu: Fetira B'Mar. The waitress said we could order it, but it would take 30 minutes. We said OK, and received and polished off the omelet and two coffees. Finally the fetira came. It was layers of filo dough with (presumably) butter between each layer. It was flaky, cut like a circular pancake, and pan fried. It was served with mar (honey) and cut into 8 pieces like a pizza. It was superb. We seem to have ordered the first fetira of the day, but others were ordering it as we left. Over for an hour of internet, and then a final distribution into day bags and packs. We leave the hotel room at 10:10 AM (the hotel room has the rare 3-prong Italian socket) and go down to the Ethio Travel offices, where we leave our bags for the duration of the Dallol trip, sparing us a hotel storage fee. We are early. By 10:45 there are multiple 4x4 Landcruisers assembling. There is a party of 4, who work in the same social service agency. The women were Indian and their spouses were Brit or American. There were two Spanish women. There is a large cohesive group of 13 Chinese, all of whom seem to work for ZTE, A Chinese Telecom company in Addis, competing with Ethiopia Telecom. Most of them seem to been posted in Addis for 5 years or so. This adventure was probably some kind of company perk. All told we took up 6 cars. We watched a great number of flats of water bottles and various paraphernalia being onloaded. Finally, after 11, our caravan was on the road. We are paired in a car with Jeremy and Dan, who are hitching across Africa, north to south. We drove out of town a couple of km to the north to a viewpoint of the city, and waited and waited. What for? The food car was an hour behind. While we were waiting, we learned that some of our group had gone to Belleview for breakfast and noticed that there was no goat... Finally, about 12:15 the food car joined to great rounds of applause. Our vehicle mates are two gangly Brits who are traveling exceedingly close to the land. Their goal is to travel the length of Africa, and then get a freighter to India, however months/years it might take. They are prepared to teach English to earn money when it becomes necessary. BTW, they had gotten stuck for 18 hours in Adi Arqay, where they camped out. They clean up, sleep, and hitch rides as the day provides. They remind Carol a bit of Peter Pan, not ready to grow up and settle down soon. Not naive but ready for however long it might take to traverse the world. Like most other people, Central Asia never on their itinerary. They are impressed by our travels there and Mike's trip to Iraq in 2012. We go north, then turn east on paved roads to go into the Danakil Depression. Eventually, the pavement disappears and we go steeply down hill on gravel and dirt roads. We break for lunch at a small hill at 1;30 PM. We are expected to climb up a few hundred feet, where we have a nice view. The staff works for a few minutes, and soon we all have plates of warm pasta and vegetables, with tuna added to each serving, if you wished. Also we have crusty rolls. Really impressive how smoothly the filling lunch is served and cleaned up. Even in the middle of nowhere, some local kids magically appear to watch and beg. They get Mike's rolls, broken in half. Back in the cars, we are off downhill. Soon we start seeing camel caravans, packing large salt chunks, coming up the road. A little after 4 PM we are at Berahile, where we have an extended beer and coffee break, while the tour organizers buy our permits and arrange our security. One of the boys hanging around the canteen wins Carol's prize for the brattiest kid in Ethiopia. Totally unrelenting at begging for a pen. He sings, dances, and gets in our face, for at least a half hour. We are probably the only parents, let alone grandparents, among our fellow travelers, easily half our age or less. WE ARE NOT AMUSED. During this time, we have a chance to share travel stories and get to know the group better. With 30 plus countries under our belt, we have become known as "seasoned travelers." Off by 5 PM, we are now in low desert, with lower hills, very inhospitable. Just before sundown, we see caravan after caravan of camels all setting off uphill. Probably more than 100 camels, in groups of 10 and 20, with the camels being tied nose to tail. At 6 PM, we pull into Hamed Ala, where there are two huts. This is where the cooking and eating will take place. Almost magically, from somewhere unknown, some 30 woven beds on wooden legs appear along with 30 mattresses. We are invited to sleep on the mattresses on the beds out in the open. Some of the camp crew suggest that we set our beds between 2 ans. They fit snugly, almost making a double bed. As dark descends the winds pick up, perhaps to 50 km/hr. One of the guidebooks describes these winds as Gara. Anyway, if your mattress and bed isn't shielded behind a Landcruiser or a building, it is likely to be blowing off into the desert. The Chinese contingent, which had set up in the open, quickly decamped to a spot behind some barriers, some using their mattresses as shields, and some cars were moved to provide necessary protection from the wind. Meanwhile, the cooks are working hard. By 7:30 PM it is dinner time. We eat inside a building. The crew had prepared a pasta dish, cabbage soup, rice, bread, salad, beans, fruit, tea - much more food than we tourists could finish. After dinner, Mike gave Jeremy and Dan stargazing lessons, with an eye toward their being able to tell time when camping outdoors. The locals had bright sodium lamps in their village 500 meters to the west, but otherwise the stargazing was excellent, especially after the Chinese off their cameras and lights. By 10 the wind had dies down a good bit. Mike woke up three times,at 1 AM, 3:30 AM, and 5 AM. At 3:30 and at 5, he saw the Southern Cross (even though we were at 15 degrees N of the equator.) At one point, he startled the cooks, working during the night, who might have thought him to be an attacker. Most of our party got up at sunrise (6:30 AM) and cleaned up as well as possible where there are no running water, showers, latrines, or outhouses. There were, however, abundant bottles of drinking water. The tour crew set up a long table outside, with eggs, bread, rolls, cereal, sugar, sliced mango, pieces of oranges, and sweet spreads such as Armella, the Ethiopian version of Nutella. Before long, the sugar bowl was half sugar, half flies, YUM. The Rift Valley extends southward from the Red Sea. It is at the juncture of the African, Arabian, and Somali tectonic plates. It is slowly expanding, and in perhaps 10-50 million years, it will have broken Africa into two land masses. There are more than 30 active or dormant volcanoes in the rift. In June 2011, Mt. Nabro, just over the border in Eritrea, erupted violently, killing 31 neighboring civilians, and causing major disruption to air travel. This land is HOT, inhospitable and unforgiving. Parts are as low as 116 meters below sea level. The rest of the group will travel all day (the second day) to reach ERta-Ale, an active volcano. There, after sundown, they will hike in 9 km up the steep cone, look in, and then hike back to the car, all in the darkness of night. The third day they will spend the whole day driving to Dallol, where we are heading today. They will have the opportunity to ride camels, if they wish to pay to do so. They will also see the salt mining process. Then a drive back to our overnight camp, and back to Mekele on day 4. On Carol's bucket list is the chance to see molten lava someday. The punishing climb and descent necessary to reach Erta-Ale is simply beyond our current abilities. 30 years too late for us. We respect our limits. Because 5 tourists were killed by local tribesmen or Eritreans (who knows?) in 2012, security is required, and these trips became very expensive, even though they remain quite primitive as to comfort. The others paid $600 US each for 4 days, which is very cheap compared to what some other tours are charging. We paid $400 US each for 2 days, because guides drivers, and security must accompany us separately. Before we broke camp, the social service group of 4 was busily adding powdered Gatorade, ordered at great expense ($75 for 3 kg) to many bottles of water for themselves. We said our good-byes and drove off into flat desert. Good bye to all vegetation whatsoever. By 8 AM we were in dried mud fields. At 8:30 AM, we parked and walked in through the dried earth. Some were molded in fantastic shapes, the residual of volcanic steaming hot spots. For Carol, there is nothing to compare to a guy with a Kalishnikov holding her hand and guiding her over the rough spots on the walk. We enter a fantastic wonderland of yellows, greens, browns. There are places that are bubbling and smoking, evil cauldrons that you dare not step into. Many of the shapes are formations that are created by the bubbling and smoking holes. There is a sulfurous smell everywhere. Back in the car, we drive to a spot where there were salt columns. Lot's wife! We see an old local with a white skull cap (a sign of having gone to Mecca) and a beard dyed orange (local fashion). Too bad that we couldn't snap a photo. According to our Orthodox Christian guide, many Ethiopian Muslims are able to make the Hajj pilgrimage. Mike was too bushed to go on and see a cave in the salt columns. It was a dry heat, but a very intense heat. Here were a couple from Spain, wife born in Cuba, who were associated professionally with safari companies in Kenya and Tanzania. They were complaining that they had paid $5000 US apiece to a different tour company for a 24 day trip, and had not had a shower for 5 days. In his opinion, if the safari folks could figure out how to provide showers, why couldn't the Ethiopians? This is an open question. On to an area where petroleum was bubbling up into a "lake." Here we also saw more bubbling spouts. There were "flowers" of salt, from which steam issued. Our guides was surprisingly knowledgeable about the chemistry and geology of the area. He pointed out potash deposits. As water boiled off, some of the pools pulled up pure petroleum, but they did not ignite. The final destination was to a salt lake that you could walk on. Here,you could pick up thin leaves of pure salt, sel de mer. Carol picked up a good number of these, and stored them in the back of the Landcruiser. A big disappointment. Today, the salt miners were not working. It was the Muslim Sabbath and the camel trains were on their two day trip to sell their goods. It was only our carload of people at he dazzling white pure salt lake. We never saw how the blocks of salt were mined. It was now 11 AM, and time to go back to Mekele. At 11:15, we are back to Hamed Ala, where we say good bye to our security. As they are getting their stuff out of our car, Carol's carefully collected leaves of salt are crushed. She takes out a small plastic box she has used to store her headlamp, and carefully places the shards of salt within, to be carried back to the States. As early as the 6th century CE, there are written records of Danakil salt being traded for hunks of gold. So we now have the third element to go with our frankincense and myrrh. Coming up the hill we see some of those camel caravans we saw setting out the day before. No chance to interact, however. Our travel companions are very amused to learn about one of our country's oldest brand of cigarettes, Camel, and the motto: I'd walk a mile for a Camel. We stop for lunch for another plate of pasta, veggies, and tuna. Since it was Friday (fasting day) our crew would not eat fish, so we split the 6 oz can. Whole oranges for dessert. We ask to go by a couple of country churches on the way back, but we are taking a different road back to the hotel. At 3:30 PM, just as we are coming to Mekele, we pass through a large windfarm (dozens of windmills). We are now within 10 km of Mekele. We are back into town at 4 PM. This time we are shown a larger room (350 birr) which we take. Conversation with an interesting threesome our age: Mike and Diane, a couple from Iowa and Ivo, a man from Belgium. They shared a car to travel to Mekele from Axum, and were able to visit several churches and monasteries on the way. For dinner we go again to Belleview and order shekla tibbs (cooked goat meat with hard boiled eggs, served up in a brazier.) Tonight, there is a brown goat tied by the legs at the end of the washroom hallway. It is a hard life to be a goat in Ethiopia. We have an early start tomorrow, so we pack and to bed.