Guest post by Cheryl Williams

We started our journey at 8am from Lalibela, being picked up by an empty Land Cruiser. Within a few minutes we’d picked up a couple from Peru and a woman from Singapore. Steph had negotiated a ride to Mekele (averting a potentially 2 day bus journey) with our Danakil tour. Our fellow passengers were all wonderful and we’d end up spending a fair amount of time together over the next week or so.

The next day was the start of our tour to the Danikal Depression. The Danikal Depression has been called “the most inhospitable place on earth” for its crazy hot temperatures and unforgiving landscapes. Oh, and some crazy beautiful scenery you’d never see anywhere else, and the crater of an active volcano. 

Our first night was to be spent checking out the volcano – including hiking up to the rim of the crater and then sleeping outside nearby. I’d read all sorts of blog posts warning that this adventure would be far from comfortable and at times frightening. The road to the volcano was meant to be one of the scariest in the world. I was picturing myself white-knuckled, holding on for dear life. Imagine my surprise when the road was anything but scary. It was really quite pleasant actually. I think we can thank the Chinese investors who are developing roads all over this country (for better or worse) at a rapid pace to help them with their exports. 

When we were about half an hour from the base camp where we’d have dinner before our nighttime hike to the volcano, all the jeeps in our entourage (there were about 7) stopped. We were told it was time for our guides to negotiate with the Afar people whose land we’d be visiting. We sat patiently in the jeep for about 20 minutes before realizing this wasn’t ending anytime soon. We got out and one of the drivers explained to us that this “negotiation” took place every time they brought a group in – and that the price varied wildly from day to day without rhyme or reason. It seemed like an intense negotiation with lots of arm waving, loud voices, and uneasy body language. We were informed that a few days previously a fist fight had broken out! Anyway, within about an hour a deal had been struck and we were on our way.

We had dinner at the base of the volcano and then, headlamps on we hiked up the volcano. It took about an hour and a half, and was a slightly odd sensation to not be able to see anything around you. The volcano itself was pretty neat, we could see and hear the lava in the crater below. I was a bit (ok a lot) uneasy about how close people were to the edge but still enjoyed the occasional peer in to see the active parts of the volcano.  After viewing the volcano for a while (probably about 30mins longer than either of us needed), we headed back to where we’d sleep for the night – basically a flat dirt area near the top of the volcano. They had some foam mats set up and gave us sleeping bags. We managed a few hours sleep before they woke us up at 4am to see the sunrise. The sunrise was nice enough- though notably not until about 6:30am.

The second day of the tour involved a visit to a very salty, very warm lake which was kind of fun to float around in for a while, and then a lot of driving (a great chance for us to catch up on sleep). That night we got to sleep in a guest house (well, until 3:30am when we were woken to get back on the road).  

This third day of the tour was really the highlight. We drove to a place called Dallol where volcanic activity has created sort of an outlet for the minerals from within the volcano. The result is this magical and almost other-planet like landscape filled with unique colours, and pools of toxic liquid. I’ve really never seen anything like it. I think this was the hottest part of the trip – but we were lucky to be in cold season and the temperature didn’t really get above 37 degrees at 10am. This area is surrounded by salt flats, and after seeing Dallol, we visited a few other sights including some “mountains” formed from salt, a very salty lake in the middle of the flats, and we also got to see how the Afar people harvest salt by hand to sell to the rest of Ethiopia.  

All in all, it was a great tour. There were definitely a few moments where we were a bit frustrated at being woken so early only to end up sitting around waiting, but we had some really great tour mates and we all found the humour in it. And it was definitely unique.