Day 2
Getting to Dodom (Base Camp)
Some of the roads are really good in Ethiopia. Fish explained to us that the Army had built many of the main highways, and the tarmac road out of Afdera was smooth and mainly straight. We were on our way to Dodom, Erta Ale’s base camp. A few hours later we stopped and under the shade of a large tree and met the other four companions of our group to have lunch.
There were now two 4x4s in our party and a short while later we turned off-road into the desert. We drove for literally an hour or more in a featureless landscape, sand dotted with a few bushes as far as the eye could see. We stopped for a break to visit the ‘bush toilet’ and stepping out of the car it was like walking into a furnace as the heat was so intense. Eventually the volcano appeared in the distance and we entered the lava field.
Our driver was absolutely amazing, he skillfully picked his way at walking pace across the rocks and boulders. Relatively speaking it wasn’t far, maybe 20k, but it took a few hours and was the bumpiest journey I’ve ever experienced. Dodom consists of a few huts, where we relaxed and had some dinner at around 5pm, and as the sun was setting we commenced the trek up to the crater.
Ascending Erta Ale
It was a fortuitous time to be in Ethiopia as a fierce war had raged from 1998 to 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Afar region where we were is very close to the border and the whole area is not particularly safe for tourists – a tourist was shot dead near Erta Ale in December 2017. While the war may have ended in 2000, peace was not declared until July 2018 – a few months before my visit.
While we were told it was perfectly safe, we still had armed guards accompany us up to the crater. I followed in the footsteps of a wizened old man with a Chinese equivalent of an AK47 slung over his shoulders. He set a quick pace and we did the 9.5km trek in less than 3hrs. The rock underfoot is very sharp and brittle and you constantly have to watch your footing, lit up by the beam of your head torch. The path more or less goes straight up the volcano, but you think it’s never going to end because the crater doesn’t seem to get any closer until you reach the top.
We did eventually reach the top and then climbed down into the crater. We were literally standing a couple of feet from the edge of the rim of the crater, as we were walking around you had to be really careful as your feet easily went through the thin layers of rock. Unfortunately for us, there was lots of smoke and it was impossible to see down into the crater. The wind was also blowing in an unfavourable direction and looking back it was really quite dangerous being up there!
At one point the wind turned and we breathed in the smoke, which is a mixture of water vapour, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide and it was a very surreal and scary feeling. We were breathing in but suffocating because there was no oxygen! You could taste the acid as the sulfur dioxide turned into sulfuric acid because of the water in your mouth. It only lasted a short while as we managed to get to an area out of the smoke but I will never forget that moment.
Erta Ale is a basaltic shield volcano, its base is 50km wide with an approx. 1km square caldera and rises to around 613m. It’s one of the remotest volcanoes in the Afar region – and Ethiopia’s most active! Known as ‘smoking mountain’ or the ‘Gateway to Hell’ it has one of only seven lava lakes on the planet, and holds the record as the worlds longest active lava lake. It is unusual in that it’s caldera actually has two pit craters, the north pit holds the continuous lava lake and the south pit is the most active lava lake.
While it was disappointing that I couldn’t view the lava lake I’d travelled all this way to see, it was a pretty awesome experience. It’s difficult to describe the roar of the molten magma boiling away below you combined with the noise of the gasses as they are expelled from the crater. You can feel it as well as hear it and photos and videos can’t convey the magnificence of the scene.
Sleeping on the crater!
We were due to spend the night in a local shelter set up on the crater, but due to the wind blowing the smoke in the wrong direction it wasn’t accessible, so mattresses were laid on the crater rim and we laid down on the rock to get some shut-eye. Around 2.30am our guide asked if we wanted a second trip to the edge to try and see the lava. I figured that the wind hadn’t changed and the probability of seeing it was close to nil so I decided to stay back. I have ‘dodgy’ ankles and didn’t want to risk an accident, especially as there was a 9.5km trek back down the volcano and no medical centre for miles.
I was really glad when everyone left as I was really tired (I think I did about 37,000 steps in total in the 24hr period) and wanted to try and sleep. There were a couple of really noisy other groups, one Russian and one Italian I think. Eventually they moved off and I had some peace and quiet. It was then that I realised that I was alone, on the crater of an active volcano in a place where a tourist had been killed only a few months previous!
A tourist and a guide had become separated from their group and the tourist shot and the guide wounded, it’s unknown who the perpetrators were but there are a number of separatist groups operating in this region. I had a moment of panic thinking that literally anything could happen to me, but then I figured that I couldn’t do anything to change the situation and I’d better try and get some sleep! The group came back later on, disappointed not to see anything but smoke (I was secretly relieved as it would have been gutting to have missed it!).
Descending Erta Ale
As we had a small group rather than waiting for sunrise, which in hindsight I wish we had, we set off before dawn to get down the volcano and on to our next location. It would have been nice to have got some photos of the volcano in the light however Fish wanted us to get down in double quick time so that we could get in front of a much larger tour group. Due to said ‘dodgy’ ankles going down is harder for me than going up, I gingerly started on my way but Fish seeing it would have taken me all morning grabbed my hand and literally dragged me down; I have never completed 9.5km in such a fast time! He was pretty amazing 💪
Back at base camp we ate some breakfast and then jumped in the 4x4s to drive the 100km to a place called Hamad Ela in the middle of the Danakil Depression!
Elizabeth Mooney 