Fifty Fathoms Below

From Oman, cast a glance westwards, toward the sinking sun. The ‘Empty Quarter’ skirts the Gulf of Aden, on to Eritrea, and adjacent; The Afar Triangle. It occupies the northernmost point of the Great Rift Valley and, one day; it will be the last piece of land to detach as the Horn of Africa drifts from the mainland. Presently, a trinity of tectonic fissures clatter together beneath this ghostly wilderness. Their potent friction hollows out the deepest geological basin in Africa - 155m below the level of the oceans – the Danakil Depression. This is Lucy’s patch of earth. Her tomb of volcanic dregs became a cradle beneath the playing out of the vagaries of the ages. For millennia, mantle plumes would have gushed beneath her, forging potent magma chambers as they approached the surface. It would have been no better above ground, in the unstinting and searing miasma . An ordinary daily temperature of 41°C brands this expanse with the dubious title: ‘The hottest inhabited place on the planet'. 

Hot as Hades. Our convoy rolls several deep; three Afar policemen, brandishing rickety machine guns. A crew of five utility men, sharing driving, cooking and translating from Afar to Amharigna to English. And, of course, twelve faranjis or foreigners, or tourists. Not in the minority anymore; these desert bad lands imbue something foreign in every visitor. All of us alien, shuffling through the uttermost sanctuaries of the cruellest elements.

Sixteen hours of sluggish progress deposits us at the base of Erta Ale – translated plainly: ‘The Smoking Mountain’. Afar insinuations of ‘smoke,’ however, are manifold. “Many Ethiopians believe Hell exists beneath this mountain,” Negasi says diffidently, “and so do I”. Considering the dark mound in the distance, it isn’t difficult to imagine the sulphurous wrath that many may conjure from the same sight. Perhaps there is some progress in people appropriating a physical hell, something real to overcome the theory of an abundant yet unclear inferno, and the menace such thinking disseminates.

We begin our ascent at 6pm. Hot as Hades. It’s a miscellaneous band, tussling with the dense air overhead and the ragged basalt underfoot. Everyone equipped with a torch, lighting their modest yet pioneering path through the blazing darkness. The fossilised lava is frail; it breaks off too easily, the disappointing remnants of its erstwhile, passionate form. The crumbling of the charred fragments release surges of an unsettling sulphuric scent. It is true; a threatening smell provokes the olfactory facilities to supersede all others. The odours mist over the eyes, clamour at the ears and infiltrate the gut, as though they are laying claim to these strange figures that slog towards the smouldering originator. Who, for her part, writhes and seethes beneath, as she has always done. Nonetheless, the only disclosure for those who venture a glance aloft; the coy, crimson afterglow.

48 hours of expectancy and the moment is upon us. Unceremonious, one more flaky footstep – like any other – and, then, that vertiginous jolt through the torso. She requires no flourishing of trumpets, baulks at decorous formalities. The twelve newcomers, on the verge for the first time, are bound only by their silence. Privately, each person’s response is peculiar. Some drift unwittingly from the group, seeming to seek out isolation. Others stand back and advance once more, desperately trying to reconstruct that original tremble. The ones who reach for their cameras appear to be postponing the reality of the encounter. It is as though capturing a version of the turmoil below will quantify it, fortify them for the inevitable, when, barefaced, they must confront the churning chasm. This time, armed onlyw ith tragic empathy for themselves and their own impermanence. 

From where, then, does this half-urge surface, taunting me to take a running leap and bomb-drop right into the middle of Erta Ale. What a grisly confliction of biology; ignoring the determination of all my bodily filaments’ to endure, I just can’t help thinking, ‘what a breath-taking jump that would be’. I ask Manuela, the very sensible Italian, if she harbours a similar craving. She does. We give each other a wide berth, both speculating the other may try it by proxy. I have heard of people experiencing similar impulses on vertical cliffs. I don’t go along with any existential explanation. More likely, it is just some untamed slice of the brain, spoiling for a bit of adrenaline.

We sleep well away from the marauding vapours of carbon dioxide. The forgiving soil. Beside the Afar sentry, who nuzzles his rifle while he fitfully rests, I can only sense the great oozing below us. Erta Ale turns out to be the watchful outlet of something farther down. It is the disorder that frightens us, who know nothing of the contorted beginnings of such substances.  

Yet, we are mindful of the ground. It is solid. This is necessary. So that we may stand on something, name it, live off it; the smelted sap must run deep. It bleeds through the strata, coaxing the very nerves of the earth. The bodies around me, longing for sleep, reach out for fugitive threads of oxygen. There is a harmony in their respiring, hopeful cadences. Clusters of the firmament are drawn downwards, through their lungs, and continue, passing through the legion ruptures of the land. From their high place they plunge into the acrid innards of the old orb. ‘This is how things are arranged’ – their unyielding concession.