Escape from Eritrea

I enjoyed two days in Djibouti City, but the real draw for me was the countryside. There are a number of excursions that one can do on a tour in Djibouti. You can do long treks, wildlife encounters on the land, whale sharks in the sea, etc. The thing that I wanted to do though was travel inland to Lake Abbé, so I looked for a tour operator to do an overnight visit to that destination.

There were a few offering this service, but the one that I found eventually had the best price and itinerary combination. Africorne Travel, run by a pleasant and professional French guy, Alain, living at least part-time in Djibouti. Sometimes he runs the tours himself and if he is not around then he has a local run it. I was in the latter category.

The Journey

On the day that we left, my guide picked me up in a big 4×4 off road vehicle, driven by a driver whose name I can’t recall. We set out. We stopped at a market to buy some fruit and then drove past some large Chinese infrastructure building roads, and then we were out in the countryside.

The drive was excellent. There are some small towns and villages along the way as you drive to the lake. We stopped at one to have lunch, before continuing on our way. But as we got away from that small town, the land just became barren. Some small rocky hills or sometimes just miles of flat cracked earth. Little to nothing was growing, there was no water to be seen, aside from the odd camel, very little in the way of wildlife. The roads disappeared and we were entirely off road. The temperature was in the mid 40s.  It was desolate.

What I found amazing, was that in this very inhospitable landscape, there were still small villages. In these small villages people seemed to live of houses that resembled rounded piles of sticks and fabric. There would be one or two shops, that were sort of like cinder block cubes. We stopped at one to pick up some water and cigarettes. But I just kept thinking, why live here? No shade or water, electricity or any conveniences. Surely like would be better in a town or at least somewhere where you cold grow food or fish, but you have to respect the resilience.

I was enjoying the journey, but what was unusual was that we were collecting people along the way. It had started with just three of us, but after our lunch in the small town a man with an orange beard joined us, and for a time another young man joined us. I gather we were giving them rides to other places that we were going. It was fun and I was happy for whatever was going on. I have since then had people ask me if I felt safe as a solo female traveler with all these strange men in the middle of nowhere; and the answer is yes. Without reservation.

The drive should have been about 6 hours not including lunch. So I was counting on it being maybe 7 hours or so. Even as I thought that, I did recognize that things can always go sideways, especially where, as here, there are no roads, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that in about 7 or 8 hours I would be at my destination camping out by the lake.

Unfortunately, things did take a bit of a turn. We got stuck in the mud. It’s funny to say “mud’’ because there was nothing remotely wet or muddy about the ground, but we got stuck in layers of dirt that had formerly been mud I suppose. We all got out of the vehicle and tried to help rocking it back and forth to get us unstuck. That was to no avail. And then we walked out from the vehicle into the landscape looking for large branches that we could use to put under the wheel to make sort of a ramp to drive out on. But the landscape was nothing. It was like the moon. There were no trees, and any bits of wood were just little twigs. Finally, two of the guys decided that they would walk back to the last village that we had passed and ask for help. The last village we passed was a ways back, but I figured that was the only option. (It’s worth mentioning, that in this landscape not only is there no Wi-Fi of course, but also no cell signal. Is the sort of place where you could imagine just dying if you didn’t have the right provisions.)  

While we waited for them to return, I sat on the ground in the shadow of the vehicle and smoked cigarillos whilst being bundled up on a long-sleeved hoodie and brimmed cap. It was roasting, but I wanted to stay out of the sun.

I was expecting my travel mates to return with a vehicle with 4-wheel drive and a winch to pull us out of the hole, but what they returned with were three skinny young men in sandals, and with a collective weight of about 300 pounds, and a shovel. How was this going to work?

They got to work, digging a bigger hole and then filling it in with dirt, packing it down and adding more. And then with a bit pushing from all of us, we were out. Two of the guys walked back to the village with the shovel, but one guy joined us for the trip. Now we were six.

The new guy took over for the designated driver and it was clear why; he skills to navigate the terrain far exceeded that of the original driver. We drove in and out of deep crevices in the earth where water once flowed, we scaled hills that seemed to be nothing more than piles of boulders. A couple of times we briefly got stuck again, but he freed us quickly.

Of course, this delay had dramatically extended our journey and by the time we got to Lake Abbé, the sun was setting, but first I got a preliminary view of what I had travelled so far to see.

Lake Abbé

Lake Abbé is salty lake at the border of Ethiopia and Djibouti and is considered to be one of the more inaccessible places on earth. The landscape is flat and then towards the edge of the lake are these craggy natural chimneys and a small, dormant volcano. Because of the late hour I would have to wait until the morning to visit them, but I got some nice views from the camp.

The camp consisted of some igloo-shaped grass huts with cots inside, a covered patio area, cooking area, and toilets that worked if there was water.

I sat on the patio area with my companions. Only two spoke English, but we sat and ate dinner and drank tea, watching the landscape disappear into darkness.  I enjoyed a couple cigars.

Because there is no electricity and nothing for miles, the sky was spectacular with stars and in the distance there was occasional lightening. I went to bed but quickly realized that the huts were like tiny ovens, so I dragged my cot outside and slept soundly under the stars.

In the morning, before everyone else got up, my guide and I walked to the lake. The ground was crazy. In places it was hard and cracked with dried salt and in other places you would sink into mud past your ankles. There were fissures in the earth in places where hot water boiled up, producing steam. It was so cool; truly like being on another planet.

We could not get right up to the lake as the mud was too thick, but we got to see a lot.

Back at the camp, we had breakfast and then four of us walked to a different part of the lake, where the water appeared pink – because it was covered in flamingos! I had never seen so many. It was incredible. We couldn’t get too close without scaring them off, so my pictures are a bit lacking In quality resolution, but in person it was beautiful.

We packed up and started the journey to another lake – Lake Assal. On the way we met lots of camels and a small troupe of curious monkeys.

Our group dwindled as we dropped off our add-on travelers and again, we were three.

Lake Assal

Lake Assal is relatively close to the city, but on the other side. (It is easily visitable as a day trip from Djibouti City.) It Is notable for being a hypersaline lake, like the Dead Sea, and also for being the lowest place in Africa. I had had the experience of floating in the Dead Sea and didn’t feel like getting all salt encrusted so I didn’t swim in it, but it was beautiful. Like nothing I had seen before. Blinding white and reflective; like ice. We could walk out quite far on the salt before it turned into a lake, but with the water on top of the sale it became like a mirror.

At the shore were a few young men and boys selling salt and items, like animal skulls, that had been submerged in the lake and were now salt-encrusted artifacts.

We drove back to the city, stopping at a massive gorge and a view of the landscape.

It was an excellent experience and while it was not cheap, it was worth the money.

Back at Djibouti City, I would have another day before heading home via London.

For my post about Djibouti City, click here.

Move on to my layover in London here.