Danakil desert and Muslim towns in eastern Ethiopia
2024
Highlights of the trip
During your stay you can enjoy the following highlights: Culture / Heritage, Discovery, Adventure / Sports & Leisure.
Best times to go
The best time(s) to go is/are : Printemps, Automne, Hiver.
Petit Futé
Where to stay - Debre Zeit ?
The map of your stay "Danakil desert and Muslim towns in eastern Ethiopia"
Detail of the stay : Danakil desert and Muslim towns in eastern Ethiopia
How to get there - Debre Zeit
Awash Falls and Fantalé Crater
Steps: Awash
Early departure for Awash in the east of the country, passing through the pleasant lakeside town of Debre Zeit and Nazret. During the day, you'll visit the spectacularAwash waterfalls and take an excursion to the Filoweha hot springs, where you'll have the chance to meet the local Afar and Kereyou nomads. Get ready to climb the Fantalé crater.
Awash and Harar National Park
Steps: Harar
Morning visit to Awash National Park, rich in animal life. Panoramic drive to Harar. Visit the city, considered the4th holiest place in the world, with over 100 mosques! Visit the market, Rimbaud's house, Ras Makonnen's palace and the ramparts. In the evening, witness the feeding of hyenas, a centuries-old tradition at the city gates.
Harar
Steps: Koremi
Visit the town (Day2 ) and the surrounding area of Harar, with its coffee plantations. Visit Koremi, Babillé and the Valley of Wonders. At the end of the day, stop off in Awadey, the khat capital of the world, from where several hundred kilos of the plant are shipped every evening to Somalia, Djibouti and Yemen. Return to Awash for an overnight stay.
Crossing the desert to Assaïta
Steps: Assaïta
Early morning departure for the road north to Gewane, a simple stopover on the way to Mille, through the land of the Afar nomads. You'll pass through the Yangudi Rassa National Park, with its beautiful scenery but no tourist facilities. Then on to Hadar, site of the discovery of the famous Lucy skeleton. Continue to Assaïta , where you will spend the night.
The lakes of Assaïta
Steps: Assaïta
On the Djibouti border, Assaïta is a town untouched by tourism, where you can visit theformer residence of the sultans of Adal, the Afambo fortress, theAbbé and Gamari lakes, set in beautiful arid landscapes, and the unexpected oasis of Aoussa, where Afar families have settled and cultivate huge fields of siane (to extract oil). Return to Assaïta in the evening.
Places of interest : LAC GAMARI LA FORTERESSE D'AFAMBO LAC ABBÉ ANCIENNE RÉSIDENCE DES SULTANS D'AWSA
Trek to Erta Alé volcano
From Assaïta, set off on a road trip through the desert on the famous single track from Serdo to the Erta Alé volcano, via Lake Afrera. Breaks in the camps of the Afar nomads. At sunset, departure for a 3-hour hike to the volcano, where you can admire the nearby molten lava. Bivouac under the stars at the foot of the crater.
Lake Assal and the Dallol depression
We set off again by 4x4 early in the morning, this time towards Lake Assal and the Dallol depression. The road is long, and we pass caravans of hundreds of camels leaving Lake Assal laden with salt blocks. Photos by Lake Assal. Overnight in Hamed Ela, an Afar village at the end of the world, where conditions are truly extreme.
