Ethiopia: Salt of the Earth

A man walks across a crusty landscape of sulfur and mineral salt near Dallol, a town that has been called the hottest inhabited place on earth. Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

 

Northern Ethiopia's Afar Depression—also called the Danakil Depression—is one of the hottest places on Earth. Parts of the region are more than 300 feet below sea level, forming a cauldron where temperatures reach above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and active volcanoes roil.

The colorful and extreme Afar is also home to a valuable commodity: salt. For centuries the Afar people have mined rich salt deposits left behind from Red Sea floods in the region—most recently, 30,000 years ago. Today, workers cut slabs of salt from the earth and pack them on to camels for a days-long journey across the desert to a market town where the slabs are sold to merchants and loaded on to trucks.

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters  

In the town of Berahile, Ethiopia, workers unload slabs of salt harvested from deposits in the Afar depression. Since the Middle Ages, camels have been used to haul salt in Africa. These caravans of camels bring the salt across the desert to the market town where it is sold to traders and loaded on to trucks.

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

According to Mark Kurlansky in Salt: A World History, "Transportation was always the key to the salt business".The journey of the Afar salt continues in Berahile, Ethiopia. Slabs of salt—brought to the town on the backs of camels—are loaded on to trucks.

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

Stacks of salt bars surround a man in Mekele, Ethiopia. The town is an important part of the salt trade route in Ethiopia. Salt sold here is distributed around the country.

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

A man readies a single block of salt, called an amole, for the market in Mekele, Ethiopia. As in many other parts of the world, salt was once used as a form of currency in Ethiopia.

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Rueters

This near-timeless view of camels trekking across the Afar salt route may one day be a thing of the past. Reuters reports that a new paved road is being built across the Afar region. Already, it has shortened the trip between the market towns of Behile and Mekele. The road will make access to salt mines easier, but it threatens to shake up traditional salt production. As Reuters reports, industrialized mining has already begun in some parts of Ethiopia.