Last weekend, John and I left our compound at Lac Assal and drove an hour east to the town of Dikhil. We stayed overnight at a little motel, La Palmerie. There we spent early evening outside under the trees watching one of the employees filling containers (plastic bags and rinsed out plastic water bottles)with fresh cows milk. He explained that the milk was from 30 cows kept nearby. Villagers streamed into the courtyard between 5 and 6 pm to purchase the milk. Old men came with their grandsons, young girls came with their mothers and friends. Three small boys came with their crate and took away about 8 bottles to sell elsewhere in town.
The next morning, we set off for Lac Abbe' after breakfast with a guide arranged by the brother of one of our employees. You definitely need a guide to get to the lake. There are no signs, multiple roads splay out and you have no idea which way to go. The drive took over two hours, some of which was pretty rough. You also need a guide because once you get anywhere near the edge of the lake, you need to know when to stop. The soft mud/sand can suck you and your vehicle up to the windows and digging out could take a lifetime. On our way out to the lake, we encountered a number of adobe houses. They are unusual sight in Djibouti. So, there must be some good clay for building in this area.
Our guide, Mohammed, took us to one of the encampements near the Lake. You can see a picture above of the stone huts with pointed tops. Several of our friends have stayed overnight here before sleeping on cots inside the huts. Looking out from the encampment over the stone walls you can see the many tufas arrizing from the surface around the lake. Many people love to be there at dawn, when the sun rises just behind the tufas. This is when Lac Abbe' takes on a magical quality. The entire setting reminded me of a mix between Mono Lake, CA with its tufas (although many less that Lac Abbe') and the other worldliness look of Monument Valley.
We made it to Lac Abbe' at midday and it was beginning to be very hot. We stopped some distance from the lake and were really not prepared to walk all the way to the lake in the midday heat. We walked a short distance and then turned back. By that time, we had taken on two extra passengers, an old man who lived at Lac Abbee and who took John to see his donkey stable and a younger man needing a ride out of the area. Because it was so hot, we never made it to the waters edge to see the large number of flamingos that use Lac Abbe' as a flyway this time of year. Darn. We will have to come back in the winter when the weather is cooler and stay overnight to watch the sunrise and hike to the water's edge.
Surrounding the lake are many hot springs that spurt up like geysers. The water is so hot that a military man not long ago tried to jump one of the springs, slipped and received severe burns to his legs. He had to be helicoptered out. We came across one large hole in the earth, where a vehicle was stuck not long ago. Some of the hot springs run a ways and cool off enough to provide water for animals to drink and to grow grass as one of the pictures shows. We saw many healthy, plump donkeys grazing out in this amazing land.
THANK YOU SO MUCH MISS ANN FOR PUBLISHING AND TELLING US ABOUT YOUR ADVENTURE THAT YOU TOOK WITH YOUR FRIEND JOHN IN THIS FORGOTTEN AREA.I WAS BORN AND RAISED NOT SO FROM THIS LAKE,THE VILLAGE CALLED AS-EYLA THAT YOU PASSED THROUGH IN ORDER TO GET AT THE LAKE.I HAVE VISITED ONLY ONCE THIS PLACE,I SPENT ONE NIGHT THERE AND THE NEXT DAY I WENT FURTHER WITH MY FAMILY AN AREA CALLED LEHADO.
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