Erta Ale means "smoking mountain" in the Afar language, and it's one of the more honest place-names you'll come across. This shield volcano in the northern Danakil has held a lava lake in its summit crater on and off for over a century — one of only a handful of such ...
Ethiopian Travel Blog
Ethiopia's tectonic underworld — and how to safely explore it.
The Danakil Depression in northeastern Ethiopia is a 200 × 50 km rift valley sitting 125 m below sea level — the third-lowest point in Africa, the hottest inhabited place on Earth, and an IUGS-listed...
Long before Dallol or Erta Ale drew travelers to the Danakil, the salt flats of Lake Karum were already a working trade route. They still are. Most mornings, you can watch Afar men cut slabs of salt — locally called amole — directly from the flat white crust, shap...
Authentic, locally-run expeditions through the Danakil Depression — active lava lakes, neon acid springs, ancient camel salt caravans, and the Afar people who call this extraordinary world home. Departures from Mekele and Semera.
The first thing our guests usually say at Dallol is some version of "this can't be real." It's a fair reaction. You're standing on a crust of salt and sulfur, in one of the hottest, driest places on the planet, looking at pools the color of things that don't normally ha...