The Danakil Depression is a contender for the hottest place on Earth, at least if you measure the average year-round temperature (reportedly 34.4C) rather than focusing onisolated bursts of extreme heat.
Worse, it only receives 100 to 200mm of rainfall per year and it is also one of the lowest places on the planet, at 410ft (125m) below sea level.
Combined, these factors make it one of the most inhospitable environments in the world.
If the climate was not enough, the region's energetic geology makes it look like an alien land. It was the strange geological phenomena that I was there to see.
- Walking around the area, you feel like you are on another planet. There are volcanoes with bubbling lava lakes, multi-coloured hydrothermal fields, and great salt pans that dazzle the eyes.
The Danakil Depression is the northern part of the Afar Triangle, a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction: a place where three tectonic plates join.
The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia. It is part of the great East African Rift Valley.