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  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia
  • Danakil Depression Tour Ethiopia

Danakil Depression tour is a 5-day safari in Ethiopia to the famous Erta Ale Volcano. This African safari in Ethiopia starts and ends in Addis Ababa going to the lowest point in Africa.

About Danakil Depression Tour

Danakil Depression Tour

This Ethiopia tour takes you to Erta Ale Volcano. The Danakil depression tour is from Addis Ababa. You will visit great sceneries that include Erta Ale Volcano. Your accommodation on this 4-day Ethiopia safari will be in tents. You will have an opportunity to try out salt mining with the Afar people. This Ethiopia volcano safari takes you to the lowest point in Africa.

About Danakil Depression

The Danakil Depression is found in the Danakil Desert. This is along the borders of Eritrea and Djibouti. The area comes with an average temperatures of 35°C and there are days when temperatures exceed 48°C.

The average annual rainfall of between 100 and 200m. Danakil Depression is rightly considered one of the most inhospitable places on earth. The National Geographic went so far as to call it the cruellest.

Danakil Depression Tour

Danakil Depression is situated at the head of the African Rift Valley. The Danakil depression tour takes you to the Afar Triangle on the so-called triple point.

The Danakil Depression constitutes one of the lowest places on earth. It’s 100 below sea level depression, the direct result of the retreating actions of the Arabian and (two halves of) the African plate. The area around Danakil Depression is especially volatile.

The earth’s crust here is especially thin. It is the resultant volcanic activity the explanation for the depression’s extraordinary landscape. A Danakil Depression tour allows you to see cones, shields, lava, geysers and salt pans.

Afari is home to the nomadic Afar. Its one main industry the mining, transport and sale of salt or amor. The Danakil Depression and wider desert is the preserve of a civilisation that occupies the borderlands of Eritrea and Djibouti as well as Ethiopia.

Danakil Depression Tour

Their language is a part of the Cushtic branch of the Afro-Asiatic. You will find Muslim and traditionally divided between the noble Asaemara and the desert-dwelling Adaemara. Afar society breaks down into clans, the desert divided into territories.

Wealth is measured by livestock, prowess and with it, rights to marriage by warrior capabilities. The trade of salt, the taxes levied, are the Afar’s major source of revenue. They are, in every respect, an amazing people.

Given the desert climate, the Danakil Depression is best visited between November and March, when temperatures drop to a sweltering average of 25 °C.

Where Danakil Depression Tour Goes

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is Ethiopia’s sprawling capital in the highlands bordering the Great Rift Valley. This is the country’s commercial and cultural hub. It is your first point of call on this Danakil Depression tour.

Your Danakil Depression tour will begin with Addis Ababa city tour depending on your time of arrival. You will visit National Museum exhibits Ethiopian art, traditional crafts and prehistoric fossils. These include replicas of the famous early hominid, “Lucy.”

You will also visit the burial place of the 20th-century emperor Haile Selassie, copper-domed Holy Trinity Cathedral, is a neo-baroque architectural landmark.

Addis Ababa is a city of contrasts where new skyscrapers stand on dirt roads. There are international business conferences meet next to traditional markets where rural customs are preserved.

The city is growing rapidly and tourism in Ethiopia is on the rise. However, manypeople going on Ethiopia safari still see the capital as a mere stopover on the way to more remote areas of the country.

The hectic city can be daunting, but “Addis”, as it is known to locals, is an exciting cultural hub with plenty to see and do – and excellent food.

Afdera Village

Afdera (Afar Afxeera) is one of the woredas in the Afar Region of Ethiopia. It is named after the saline Lake Afdera.

Afdera Village is located in the southern part of the Afar Depression. A Danakil Depression tour  goes to part of the Administrative Zone 2. Afdera is bordered on the southwest by the Administrative Zone 4, on the west by Erebti and Abala.

On the north by Berhale, on the northeast by Eritrea, and on the southeast by Administrative Zone 1. The largest town of this woreda is Afdera.

You will on this Danakil Depression tour see the highest peak in Afdera is Mount Mallahle (1875 meters). Other mountains in this woreda include Erta Ale and Borawli. Mining is the principal industry in this woreda. The best known resource extracted is salt.

Danakil Depression Tour

According to the Afar Regional Mining and Energy Office, there are 300 active land grants around Lake Afdera, which the Office reports creates 1,800 permanent and over 40,000 part-time jobs.

An all-weather road constructed in the 1990s connects this woreda to the main Awash – Asseb highway. About 90 kilometers of this gravel road, connecting Afdera to Serdo, was completed in late January 2009. 

At the Tio waterhole, near the southeastern border with Administrative Zone 4, L.M. Nesbitt located the 1884 massacre of the Italian expedition. This was led by Gustavo Bianchi and Giuseppe Maria Giulietti.

Nesbitt was prevented from erecting a cairn to mark the site by the Afars, who believed this was part of a blood feud.

Erta Ale volcano

This is the ultimate destination on your Danakil Depression tour. Erta Ale volcano is a large basaltic shield volcano in the Erta Ale volcanic range. It is in the central northern Danakil depression (NE Ethiopia).

The Erta Ale Volcano is famous for its persistent lava lake. This has been active during most of the past decades since it was first discovered in the 1960s.

Erta Ale is only 613 m high, but as typical for a shield volcano has a gentle slope and a large 40 km diameter base.

Danakil Depression Tour

The summit is truncated by a complex, elongated 1700 x 600 m wide caldera. This contains vast lava flows and several larger and smaller pit craters. Most notably is the active north and south crater, which contains the lava lake at present.

Erta Ale is one of the main attractions of the Danakil Depression tour. It has become a popular Ethiopia tour destination in recent years.