The Road to Semara

Semera is in the North Eastern part of Ethiopia, in the Afar region, closer to Djibouti than Addis Ababa. A while back I ventured over there to see what this ‘remote and mysterious’ place was like and my conclusion….very hot. With an average daytime temperature of 40°C  and a night time temperate of around 30 °C , this place really is a challenging environment to live and work in. This set of 30 photos describes my10 hour journey to Semera or let me phrase it differently, the Highway to Hell.

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  An Afari girl waiting around while her camels graze
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  The nomad houses are generally made up of hides, tarpaulin and sticks. When it is time to leave, they are packed up and put on top of a camel.
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  Semera is close to one of the largest camel markets in Ethiopia and camels are either walked to their destination or driven, what luxury
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  The contour of the landscape changes as we drive further and further East
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  Nestled in between the rocks is another small settlement
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  You find all sorts along the journey, including this old American fire-truck
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  A boy with old jerry cans in search of water
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  Blades for the wind-turbines, coming in from Djibouti
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  Another local house, which can be set-up and dismantled in a matter of hours
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  Straight as far as the eye can see
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  This road leads down to the volcanic area of the trip. The asphalt here is severely deformed due to the heat from the sun and the earth
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  Some more local houses
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  As you can see, part of the road is submerged in the Lake Basaka
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  The railway line and the road crosses Lake Basaka on the journey
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  A large ant-hill under a tree
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  Awash National Park is passed on the way to Semera
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  Long straight road with a camel and a truck. We did 12 hours of this in one day
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  A few children stand out amongst the rocks where they nomads have built their settlement
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  A larger nomad settlement, these typically move every week to a new location in search for food and water
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  The Semera road is the only road that connects Ethiopia to the coast via Djibouti and all heavy machinery makes its way into Ethiopia using this one road
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  A nomad woman with her camel walking along the road
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  Donkeys and camels are the work-’horses’ of the Afar region
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  Some cows grazing on what little vegetation they can find
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  Along the way, many of the town’s sole income comes from selling coal.
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  Lots and lots of vast open nothingness. The rains only come here for 1 week every year, the rest of the year it is just arid
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  One of seven ‘fresh’ accidents seen on this trip. Road safety in Ethiopia is amongst the worst in Africa.
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  The landscape changes as we travel through volcanic territory.
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  A small shop along the way
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  The road to Semera, similar to route 66 in many ways. A long drive with long stretches of nothing…
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  As we leave Addis Ababa a herd of Cows greet us and bid us a safe journey. We won’t be seeing many of them where we are going