NATIONAL PARKS SAFARIS ETHIOPIA

HIGHLIGHTS, WHERE THEY ARE AND HOW TO VISIT

WHAT's SO SPECIAL ABOUT LAKE ASSALE or LAKE KARUM, ETHIOPIA

LAKE ASSALE, ETHIOPIA or LAKE KARUM: At 102 m below sea level it features salt winning, camel caravans, Hot sulphur springs, Sulfur hoodoos and the Erta Ale Volcano.

Lake Assale

Learn all about the Lake Assale, or Lake Karum, in the Danakil Depression, formed when the area was periodically flooded by the Red Sea after which 20+m deep layers of salt accumulated at what is now the 120,000 ha lake. Covered with a thick salt crust, the area is part lake and part salt deposit. The salt deposits are a real highlight of a visit to the Afar region as you cruise across a blinding white salt crust, visit the Afar people mining the salt in a traditional way as they have done for thousands of years.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Most of our hundreds of pictures are favored in Google! Why? Because no other website has so many beautiful high resolution pictures, all taken by ourselves. Our pictures not only show you the beauty of Ethiopia, but they also show that we have been everywhere when we researched all parks for the Ethiopian Wildlife Autharity, photographing wildlife, plants, people and culture. Read our PDF report to the Government on Parks an Culture! So why consider booking our our Ethiopia Culture & National Parks modules? Because only we combine the culture of Ethiopia with its nature. We don't mislead you like many tour operators do. When the Blue Nile falls are dry.... we tell you. When fog clouds the lava lake of Erte Ale Volcano? We let you know. Just drop us a mail info@nationalparks-worldwide.com  and we will check it out for you.

Our tours take you to ALL famous cultural places of Ethiopia, and on top of that, you get to see up to 20 large parks accompanied by a conservation professional, not a mere guide. There is nothing similar on the market. Check out our tours in modules like: Historical Circuit; Danakil Depression; Eastern Route; Simien Mountains; Bale Mountains; Southern Parks Safari; Gambella; Addis Ababa. BUT WAIT: if you buy your international ticket with Ethiopia Airlines, they will sell the internal flights at a price that you can't even ride the bus for. But you MUST plan it all in one package and making changes may be very costly. So let us help you plan your entire trip and book your local flights for an incredibly low price after you booked your international flight with Ethiopian Airlines! Also: Ethiopia can be combined with other East African countries, we organize.

For millennia, traditional salt mining has been the regions main economic activity, with salt camel caravans traveling up to thousands of kilometers, when salt was still a major trading commodity, thus bringing wealth to the Axum empire. The salt is still cut by hand and loaded onto camels for transportation to the highlands as it was done over the  centuries, but now the salt gets loaded onto trucks at the Berahile salt market, a small town at about 2 hours drive from the Tigray capital Mekele. Caravans pass daily through Hamed Ela a hamlet where most tourists pass the night. Due to volcanic activity, the Afar Depression has some of the most colorful geyser-like activity in the world, at a former potash mining camp at Dalol. Every evening, Afar cameleers pass through the village on their way to Berahile.

Recently, the government of Ethiopia granted new industrial potash mining concessions which are now becoming operational, but we have been explained, that these operations extract potash and rare minerals from salt deposits at great depth and that they are not a threat to the traditional salt mining. We are concerned though that new salt winning operations in salt pans at Lake Afrera will compete with the traditional mining at Lake Assale and that this traditional trade with its salt caravans will go extinct over the next decade or two.

Tourist camp at Hamed Ela

Tourists travel in caravans of minimal 2 or three four-wheel-drive vehicles and spend the night in primitive facilities in Hamed Ela, where they either sleep in tents or makeshift Afar huts. After visiting Lake Asale, many tours continue to visit the Erta Ale Volcano.

Traveling on the salt crust of Lake Karum

Learn all about  Lake Assale or Lake Karum. Drive across a fascinating blinding white salt crust  where Afar tribesmen mine salt transporting it on camels to the Berahile Market and the Dallol hot springs.

Formerly the lake was a shallow bay of the Red Sea which from time to time got connected and disconnected. Each time it became disconnected, the sea water dried up leaving behind a salt deposit. At the process was repeated over and over again, hundreds of meters of salt accumulated on its deepest point, which is now the famous lake currently at an elevation of 115 meters below sea level. On top of the lake is a extremely salty lake in many places covered by a thick crust that supports vehicles. The colors of the salt crust vary from dark brown where mixed with soil to almost a blinding snow white in other places where the salt is purer.

Traditional salt mining at Lake Karum

Traditional salt mining at Lake Asale and transportation on Camel caravans, which take the salt to Berahile, 48 km to the east. If you want to still see this, don't wait too long as commercial salt companies are gradually pushing this traditional industry out of existence.

Salt hoodoos and cliffs at Lake Karum

At a distance of just a few kilometers from the Dallol hot springs, are fascinating salt formations consisting of eroding layers of salt which have shaped into salt hoodoos. These hoodoos are rarely visited by the tour operators, but our expeditions always take you there.

While the surface of Lake Asale at times is blindingly snow white, there are also different salt deposits which may be in different shades of brown. Some look like salt rocks (left) or layered hoodoo formations (above). The salt formation on the left is different from the ones at the Dalol hot sulpher springs. Both are systematically neglected by most tour operators.

Sulphur Springs at Dalol

The hot sulphur springs are in exuberance comparable to Mammoth Springs in Yellowstone National Park in the USA. The characteristic white, yellow and red colors are the result of sulphur and potassium salts colored by various ions. Hamed Ela, at 48km east of Berahile, is the tourism springboard for visiting these sulfur springs.

Mini geysers pouring out sulfur laden hot water which after crystalization assumes different colors according to temperature and exposure at the air.

Crystallization of sulfuric salts in saturated water in mini pools.

The shore of the main sulfur lake.

As the hot springs move about over time, extinct mini-geysers are left behind in the landscape.

Sufphuric gases escape from many whole in the porous lava rocks and around the edges, the gases sublimate in to thin "egg shells" of sulphur salts that cover the rocks around the hot springs.

Your host on our trips is our associate en Ethiopia, Tamirat, a professional forester who has traveled the entire country to study forests, wildlife and cultural highlights for the Ethiopian National Parks Service and the Ministry of Tourism. Besides having an academic degree, Tamirat is an awfully warm person and a great travel companion.

After visiting Lake Assale and the Erta Ale Volcano, it is possible to continue to Lake Afrera and from there to the Lucy site at Hadar, but most people return to Tigray capital Mek'ele to continue from there to Lalibela.

This travel module takes you to Lake Assale:

WHAT's SO SPECIAL ABOUT LAKE ASSALE or LAKE KARUM, ETHIOPIA