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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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AFAR DEPRESSION

 

Salt and Survival:

Afar Depression


                Only drought-resistant trees and grasses grow here.  The wildlife includes herbivores such as gazelle, oryx and the last population of African wild ass, along with hundreds of species of birds.  Only hard goats and camels can survive here; agriculture is out of the question.  The economic mainstay of the Afar people is salt.

                 The region’s lowest point is Lake Assal in Djibouti.  At 157m (515ft) below sea level, it is the lowest point in Africa.  Here, and at Lake Asele, are salt flats formed from circular tablets of salt, resembling monochromatic patchwork quilt.  People rise at 5am to chisel, lever and smash the salt into blocks – known as amole – which are carried by camels to the trading settlements of Berahile or Mekelle.

Location: Afar, Ethiopia

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