April 20, 2011
4/20/11 - 4/21/11
82 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
13:02
Archived in Ethiopia
April 19, 2011
4/19/11 - 4/20/11
130 °F
We’re driving through the sparkling white salt flats of Northern Ethiopia listening to Hindi music “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” being played on the phone of one of our 4 Ethiopian military armed guards. It is blindingly bright outside so we are all wearing sunglasses but at least the road is smooth at last! How surreal? This morning we woke up to an amazing sunrise over our crazy outdoor beds, ate breakfast and at 7am picked up the necessary government military Afar guards. We upgraded to one guard per tourist because we would be less than 30 km from the Eritrean border and in 2007 some British people were kidnapped and held for ransom (BTW they did make it out alive). We headed out on a short one hour drive from Hamed Ela to the Dallol Depression where we walked up over uneven surfaces and sharp jagged salt formations for about 20 minutes. Along the way we saw mineral formations of every color in weird shapes like mushrooms. Then, we descend into the Dallol crater where we see the multi-colored hot sulfur lakes with their bubbling springs. There are so many beautiful colors neon green, yellow, blue, brown, orange, etc. . . . They are actually known as hot brine springs. Of course, this area is also more than 116 meters (328 feet) below sea level and the lowest point on the African continent. It also happens to be one of the lowest points on earth not covered by water! The sulfur is stinky and we’re not sure if that’s what caused a rare nose bleed for Ruby but Ruby has to “sit it out” for a little bit. Later she comes down and joins everybody to watch the bubbling acid and walk over some of these crazy formations. Afterwards we visited some caves and ended up at a crazy lake with dead birds lying on its banks. They have been poisoned by drinking the water that feels “oily” since Tony thought it would be a good idea to stick his finger in the lake. . of course he forgot that he had a cut on that finger. I hope it doesn’t get infected or that he doesn’t turn into the swamp thing!
We think Ruby has some mild heat exhaustion and decides to take it easy from this point on. The army guards had ICY cold water that they shared with Ruby. She learned their secret for keeping it cool. They cover their water canteens in a material like woven hemp or twine and pour a small amount of water on it to get the material wet. Then, they place their canteens on the roof of the truck to cool in the wind with the miracle of evaporation. Amazing, also keeping a wet cloth like Tony’s “camel scarf” over your head will keep you really cool!
Afterwards we continued on to visit the salt mine workers who chip blocks of salt out of the ground and get paid 25 birr (approximately $1.50) per camel to haul blocks of salt up to the highlands. The Afar people make double. It is amazing to believe these guys WALK the camels the entire distance (80 km or more). EVERYONE leaves the Danakil come May 1 to November 1 because the temperatures soar to 146F and above. By this time we were ready to leave as well!
On the drive back to Hamed Ela we heard a dragging sound-- only to find that the strut on Hailu’s truck was now broken. We again hopped into the car with the Katia and Ben and headed back to Hamed Ela without Hailu or the guards. After 2 hours Hailu made it back and had temporarily fixed the strut. Hailu convinced us that everything would be fine if he drove slowly.
After lunch we were ready to drive back to Makele when Hailu got into an argument with Fitsum the other driver and took off with us in the car saying that “they had the better car and would catch up with us later”. Geez, about 20 minutes later we see our “safety car” with the Frenchies take off and leave us in the dust! Tony and I both had a sinking feeling in our stomachs as we watched them race by but luckily we could see them stopped far in the distance waiting for us. When we got close to reaching them . . . they sped off again. The next time we caught up they stopped and waited. Ben and Katia got out of the car and told us that they wanted us to get in ASAP. Apparently, Fitsum and the cook Daniel wanted to leave us behind stating “they would relax and wait for us in the next town. . .60 km away drinking cold cokes” because they were upset with Hailu and didn’t want to wait for us! We can’t believe that they wanted to abandon us with Hailu in a truck with a broken radiator hose AND strut. .. thank god for Ben and Katia who wouldn’t let them do it! The rest of the drive back was going well until Fitsum (the other driver) got into an argument with some local Afar kids when we stopped for cokes. The Afar police wouldn’t let us pass until we explained the situation. Luckily we got out of there and on our way to Makele at long last! We arrived into town at sunset experiencing a range of emotions including relief, exhaustion and anger. The first thing we did was take long hot showers. We met up with our friends Ben and Katia for dinner to celebrate surviving this experience. We noticed that we had some serious temperature control dysfunction going on since we were all shivering and wearing sweaters in 80 degree weather.
Our advice: this is an absolutely AMAZING experience if you’re appropriately prepared: First, DO NOT use Noah Safaris no matter how good their pricing looks. Avoid anyone named Haddas Woldu, Ababa, or Hailu. Book an expensive tour with good air conditioning and physically check out the truck that you will be driving and that it is NEW. You want to be physically ready to hike 20 miles plus in hot weather. The best times to go (weather wise) are between December and January. We recommend good hiking boots, a headlamp, ask for the optional camel up the volcano if you might have trouble, carry high calorie snacks, lots of sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, electrolyte replacement solution, a scarf, an umbrella, and be sure they bring AT LEAST 4 Liters of water per person per day!!











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Posted by Tony.Ruby
11:43
Archived in Ethiopia
April 18, 2011
4/18/11 - 4/19/11
130 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
09:59
Archived in Ethiopia
April 17, 2011
4/17/11 - 4/18/11
After a small breakfast outside our huts we loaded stuff in the trucks and started driving out of town. Not even a mile out of town the road ends and all you can see are tire tracks into the desert . . . and we thought the roads were bad yesterday! The farther from town we got the worse the roads got. For a few minutes we got so lost that when we finally found the road our driver, guide and guard started clapping.
It was so hot out that our thermostat maxed out at 120F or 50C and about an hour into our drive our truck overheated! Nothing a little duct tape and all our drinking water couldn’t fix though! Our driver Hailu was always trying to take shortcuts and ended up separating us from our “safety car”—you know the one that is supposed to be available if our truck breaks down in the middle of the desert so we’re not stranded alone in 120+ heat. Needless to say we were scared and cursing Katia and Ben for letting their driver Fitsum take off without us. Thankfully we eventually found the little village where we were going to eat lunch. We were thanking god that the truck did not break down while we were alone and immediately told Katia and Ben not to let their driver leave without us under ANY circumstances. They said that they weren’t able to see out of the back window because of all our supplies and thought their driver Fitsum was paying attention to that sort of thing. Regardless, they would be sure not to leave us in the future.
Right after lunch we took off to head to the Erta Ale volcano. Unfortunately, our driver Hailu drove the car straight into a sand dune! The truck was stuck; it required the help of two trucks, a rope and a shovel to get us out of there. Meanwhile, this is when Tony got so hot that he took his first “camel bath”, a bath of well water for the camels! After a few broken ropes and just about all the people in the village helping we finally got out of the sand dune. Hailu was so angry that he kicked our local Afar guide out of the car and exchanged him with a second Afar policeman. So now it’s Tony, Ruby, Hailu and two Afar guys with machine guns in the car. As soon as we started driving, Hailu was driving “like a jerk” and then proceeded to get into a heated argument with one of the armed Afar guards. We are just watching in terror because they’re arguing in another language! We see fists get raised and start really getting worried. All of a sudden Hailu turns to us and says “do you know what he just said to me? He says he wants to kill me!” Meanwhile, the truck has broken down again and our “safety car” has left us . . . ! We are all alone with these three crazy men . . . yikes, we wanted out of that car so bad. We were willing to brave the desert alone rather than be in a car with arguing men with guns! We watched in terror as they jumped out of the car to fight. . .so Tony jumped in the front seat and was ready to try and start driving if need be, meanwhile I started honking the horn and flashing the headlights in the hopes that this might catch someone’s attention. Sadly, no one came until about 20 minutes later when we saw another truck coming up behind us in the distance. Tony and I jumped out of the car and flagged the truck down and at just about the same moment our “safety truck” came back. At about the same time one of the two armed guards—Hussain was level headed enough and took away the gun from the other arguing guard.
After that we were traumatized and decided we didn’t want to drive with Hailu anymore. We threw all our stuff in the back and smushed into Fitsum’s car like sardines, which was now severely overweight. We decided to test the shocks . . . which failed! With all the weight the back the right suspension fell apart. We left Hailu and the guards behind and headed up to the Erta Ale volcano which means “smoking mountain” in Afar.
This was Ruby’s first camping trip EVER and in true Ruby form she decided to “go big”. We got to base camp and ate a light dinner while watching the sunset. Then, we loaded the camel’s back with supplies —lots of water and anything we’d need up on top. We contemplated whether to leave our laptop (our most precious commodity) at camp or take it up with us but then we thought about the conversation we would need to have with the Dell service center: “Uh yes, so those hoof marks and lava can be explained . . . we decided to take the laptop up to a volcano and it fell 9 feet off a camel’s back and into an active lava lake”. LOL!
In order to avoid the heat of the day we’d complete the 17km (10+mile) hike up to the rim of the Erta Ale volcano at night. Luckily for us we had a huge full moon to light the way. It was not exactly an easy hike: 95-110F heat at night, uphill over sharp, jagged volcanic rock. It wasn’t until about midway through the hike that we realized. .. Oh my god, we’re climbing up to an active volcano in the dark with three men (two armed) and none of which spoke English. Well, it was too late to turn back at that point! Ruby was dragging near the end and unfortunately our driver Fitsum was hypoglycemic from forgetting to eat all day. He was sick all the way up this “stair climber from hell”. Luckily, we had a doctor who was prepared with us! Every time we would ask, our guide would say “just 10 more minutes” in broken English.
The payoff for all of this was BIG. After about three and a half hours of hiking and lots of break for Fitsum we made it to the outer rim of the volcano. We put down our daypacks and climbed down into the outer crater. The landscape was INSANE. It looked like we were on the moon with all the crazy volcanic rock formations. We had to walk across some sort of crazy black material that felt like thin ice that had already been cracked and was just minutes away from collapsing. Every time we would put our weight on it we would feel it give a little more. Needless to say we were treading lightly. At the end of 15 minutes we arrived to the active volcano. WOW!! We have never seen anything like it. We were standing at the edge of an active volcano with huge lava explosions going on 20-30 feet below us! Every now and again we would get hit with a super hot blast of sulfur gas when the wind changed directions or right after a lava explosion. We just stood mesmerized for an hour at least. .. it was like nothing any of us had ever seen before---especially this close! It was just the four of us plus 2 of our guides, no safety ropes, guard rails or otherwise. If any of us wanted we could walk right up to the edge—we would NOT recommend it though. We kept about a 5 foot distance from the edge ourselves since the edge was made only of newly hardened ash. This is a shield volcano with the longest-existing lava lake (present since 1906) and there are only five lava lakes in the world! Afterwards, we got to top off this spectacular evening by sleeping under the stars and huge moon on the rim of an active volcano. It was unforgettable!
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Posted by Tony.Ruby
08:59
Archived in Ethiopia
April 16, 2011
4/16/11 - 4/17/11
110 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
12:43
Archived in Ethiopia
April 15, 2011
4/15/11 - 4/16/11
78 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
08:28
Archived in Ethiopia
April 14, 2011
4/14/11 - 4/15/11
78 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
07:46
Archived in Ethiopia
April 13, 2011
4/13/11 - 4/14/11
82 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
07:22
Archived in Ethiopia
April 12, 2011
4/12/11 - 4/13/11
80 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
04:30
Archived in Ethiopia
April 11, 2011
4/11/11 - 4/12/11
83 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
04:12
Archived in Ethiopia
April 10, 2011
4/10/11 - 4/11/11
78 °F
Posted by Tony.Ruby
15:42
Archived in Ethiopia
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