Ethiopia

Last year was not my most productive year as a photographer. I still took over 20000 images but it’s half what I did in 2014. And it’s not because I have not traveled abroad (I went to Ethiopia, Japan, France and Turkey) but I did not go out locally as much as I usually do. My day job kept me busy and I did not have much spare time. Even this blog is suffering from my lack of free time. Finally at the end of February, I was able to compile my best images for 2015. Better late than never is one my motto in life. Interestingly enough, there is a theme that is emerging from my images, I love cityscape (my top 4 images are Tokyo, San Francisco, Nice and San Francisco again). I love man-made structures, you have to go to my volcano image to find a purely...

One of our main reasons for going to the Ethiopia was to see the semi-permanent lava lake at night on the Erta Ale. Erta Ale is about 600 meters high and is located near the north east of Ethiopia. It’s actually very close to the law-less country Eritrea. It is notable for holding the longest-existing lava lake, present since the early years of the twentieth century (1906). Volcanoes with lava lakes are very rare: there are only six in the world (Erta Ale, Ethiopia – Ambrym, Vanuatu – Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica – Kīlauea, Big Island, Hawaii [there are actually two in Hawaii: Halemaʻumaʻu and Pu’u O’o craters] – Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of the Congo). The largest one is the Nyiragongo but is now...

Like Burma, I’m going to split my trip to Ethiopia in several posts. If you are not familiar with the Danakil depression, I have included a Google map of the area below. It’s in the northeast region of Ethiopia, in the semi-autonomous zone called the Afar region. The Afar region is named after the Afar tribe that administers the region. However the Afar tribe is split between Eritrea and Ethiopia, causing people to cross between the two countries relatively easily, despite the border with Eritrea being technically closed (Ethiopia and Eritrea were at war in 2000). As you may know, Eritrea is not a safe place. This region is relatively high risk for foreign travelers, as stated by the UN, which recommend not to travel there. Traveling there is a long...