Danakil Depression Expedition: Fire & Salt

This morning you fly north to Mekele, the lively highland capital of the Tigray region and your springboard into the Danakil Depression. On arrival you explore this proud, bustling city, visiting the market where salt from the depression is traded, and perhaps the palace museum of Emperor Yohannes IV, gaining a feel for Tigrayan culture, cuisine and history. Here you make final preparations for the expedition, meeting your expedition team and organising water, supplies and equipment for the days in the desert ahead. Mekele sits at a comfortable altitude with a pleasant climate, so you enjoy good food and excellent coffee while you can. Your guide reviews the plan and the all-important heat and safety precautions. Settle into your hotel for a comfortable night. Rest well in Mekele, ready to descend tomorrow into the surreal, sweltering world of the Danakil.

Today you leave the cool highlands and descend by 4x4 into the Danakil Depression, the temperature climbing steadily as the land drops far below sea level and the scenery turns raw and elemental. You reach the salt flats around Lake Asale, blinding white and shimmering to the horizon, where Afar miners hack slabs of salt from the crust by hand and load them onto long camel and donkey caravans, as they have for centuries. Then you climb the salt dome of Dallol to walk among its psychedelic sulphur springs, acid pools and mineral terraces, glowing in surreal yellows, greens and reds amid acrid fumes, one of the most colourful and otherworldly places on Earth. As the fierce sun lowers, you settle into a simple desert camp among the Afar. Rest under a vast canopy of stars deep in the Danakil.

Today builds toward the extraordinary climax of the expedition, the active volcano of Erta Ale and its permanent lava lake. You travel by 4x4 across trackless lava fields and desert to the base of the volcano, the going hot and rough, resting through the worst of the midday heat. In the cool of the evening you set out on foot, escorted by Afar scouts, hiking across old black lava flows to the summit crater, arriving after dark. There you stand at the rim and gaze down at the churning lava lake, a glowing, hissing cauldron of molten rock throwing fountains of orange fire into the night, one of only a handful of such lakes on the planet. The heat, roar and primal power are unforgettable. You camp simply near the crater. Rest beneath the stars with the volcano glowing close by.

You rise very early to catch the lava lake one last time in the pre-dawn darkness, when the molten glow is at its most dramatic against the black crater, before the sun climbs and the heat returns. After this final, unforgettable look into the Earth's fiery heart, you hike back down across the lava fields to your vehicles as the day warms. You then begin the long, spectacular 4x4 journey back up out of the depression, the temperature easing and the scenery softening as you regain the cool highlands and reach Mekele in the afternoon or evening. A hot shower, a comfortable bed and a proper meal are especially welcome after the rigours of the desert. Over dinner you can reflect on the fire, salt and stars of the Danakil. Rest well in Mekele, having completed one of the world's great adventures.

This morning you fly from Mekele to Lalibela, exchanging the raw drama of the desert for the profound serenity of Ethiopia's spiritual heart, high in the Lasta mountains. On arrival you settle in and begin to explore the astonishing rock-hewn churches, eleven monolithic sanctuaries carved downward out of solid red rock in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to form a New Jerusalem, linked by tunnels and trenches and still alive with pilgrimage, chant and incense after eight centuries. Your guide leads you through the northern and southern clusters and to the sublime cross of Bete Giyorgis, the Church of Saint George, the most beautiful of them all. The peace and devotion here are a moving counterpoint to the Danakil. This evening enjoy a relaxed dinner and perhaps a coffee ceremony. Rest well in sacred Lalibela.

After a final Ethiopian breakfast and perhaps a last quiet visit to a favourite church, you transfer to the airport for your flight back to Addis Ababa, where you connect with your onward international departure. You leave having completed one of the most extreme and unforgettable expeditions on Earth: gazing into the glowing lava lake of Erta Ale beneath the stars, walking the psychedelic sulphur springs of Dallol, crossing the shimmering salt flats among the ancient camel caravans, and enduring the raw heat of the Danakil Depression, all balanced by the highland culture of Mekele and the sacred, living wonders of Lalibela. The images of molten fire, technicolour minerals and salt caravans in golden light stay seared in your memory long after you fly home. Depart proud and elated, already telling the story of your journey into the extremes of Ethiopia.