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Dankalia, a planet within a planet, is the land of the Afar People. From the shores of the Red Sea inland to the feet of the Eritrean and Ethiopian highlands this is the heart of the Rift Valley, geologically one of the most active spots on the planet. A vast expanse of lava, deserts, below-sea-level salt plains and lakes and active and extinct volcanoes along a north/south chain; a desolate land with an extremely salty lake (Lake Afrera, also named Lake Giulietti after the Italian explorer killed by the Afars in 1881) at 140 meters under the sea level kept alive by the thermal springs feeding it, it is the hottest region on the Earth. Its coastal part entirely in Eritrea and the inner and larger part in Ethiopia it was home to the Australopithecus afarensis, “Lucy” from Hadar, Ethiopia, and Buia's Homo Ergaster from Alat, Eritrea; quite likely the cradle of humanity. The pictures on this site span a period between 1965 and 1974 and indeed morphologically little has changed in those regions to this day notwithstanding the eruptions of the Ertale and the Nabro volcanoes, they are as actual now as they were yesterday. While presently there is an abundance of material on the Web related to Dankalia, that presented on this site goes back to those days when these regions were little known, hardly accessible and reaching them was always a dangerous adventure. Moreover, presently many of the places here presented, geologically dangerous, are no more accessible since excursions are strictly controlled by the Ethiopian Ministry of Tourism and take place under armed escort, hence here we have a unique photographic archive.
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