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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

 Where on Earth?

Afar Depression


               The Afar Depression is to the northeast of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. It extends into Ethiopia’s neighbours, Eritrea and Djibouti, and is part of the Great Rift Valley that stretches from the Middle East to southern Africa.  It is the hottest place on Earth and one of the inhospitable.

Lava lakes and hot Springs

                The region’s most memorable feature is Erta Ale (‘smoking mountain’ in the afar language) in the remote northeast of Ethiopia.  This active volcano’s summit crater contains the world’s oldest existing molten lava lake: known as the ‘gateway to hell’, it is thought to have been bubbling away like burned porridge for more than 100 years.  The volcano, which attracts only the most intrepid tourists, explorers and archaeologists, is most striking at night, when the summit glows an eerie red.  The heat is so intense, and the sulphurous smell so overpowering , that visitors can stand no more than a few minutes at the edge of the crater looking down on the red-hot and searing-white molten lava, churning, hissing and spluttering.

                At Dallol, a volcanic crater northeast of Erta Ale, the landscape changes daily.  Constantly bubbling sulphur springs are coloured red, yellow, orange, green and white by the mineral deposits and bacteria that thrive in the extremely hot, acidic conditions.

Location: Afar, Ethiopia

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