Soldiers

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Adventures in No Man's Land

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Adventures in No Man's Land

We knew that today’s journey was going to be a lengthy one; not only did we need to cross a potentially tricky international border, but we also knew that in order to get our visas fully validated we would need to get to Khartoum which was over 750km away from where we currently were, we weren’t even sure if it was going to be possible, but if nothing is ventured, then nothing is gained, so with bleary eyes we headed out into the dark streets to look for the first of many of today’s transport types...

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The Danakil Part Four: The Gateway to Hell

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The Danakil Part Four: The Gateway to Hell

If you were woken up and told that today, was the day you would be heading to the Gateway to Hell, what would your choice of breakfast be?  A Full English perhaps? Or maybe a giant stack of pancakes complete with all the toppings?  I tell you what it probably wouldn’t be: a packet of banana cream biscuits!  Yes, remarkably someone has actually created this monstrosity, and they are, as you can imagine, absolutely terrible!  This was the reality we faced as we waited outside a small police check point, deep in the Ethiopian desert, for our paperwork to be signed, before we could continue our journey; fortunately, we had been given some excellent coffee to offset the taste of the biscuits, and we both agreed that this was a journey well worth enduring any number of banana creams for.

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The Danakil Part Three: Venus is a place on Earth

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The Danakil Part Three: Venus is a place on Earth

In the truest sense of the word this was an alien landscape: well below sea level, a landscape of green and yellow hues and weird shapes, with day time temperatures reaching 50°C, and geothermal activity rife throughout the area, my rudimentary understanding of geology was struggling to interpret what was going on.  If NASA ever send a mission to Venus, this is where I suggest they test their equipment, as there was very little left to suggest we were actually still on the little ball of green and blue we call earth...

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The Danakil Part One: Bridge Over Salty Waters

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The Danakil Part One: Bridge Over Salty Waters

The Danakil depression in Northern Ethiopia is one of the most geographically unique places in the world.  Remote and truly hostile, the Danakil can lay claim to being one of the hottest and driest places on the planet, with daytime temperatures surpassing 50°C and less than an inch of rain falling in the region each year; it is also one of the lowest parts of Africa, and one of the most tectonically active, with steaming acid lakes, rivers of lava, and clouds of volcanic gases creating an almost extra-terrestrial environment.  It is little wonder then, that the Danakil and its features have inspired such enigmatic nicknames as ‘The cruellest place on earth’ or ‘Gateway to Hell’.

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A Sunny trip to see North Korea...

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A Sunny trip to see North Korea...

In the balmy summer of 1989, there were two major global events taking place which would change the course of modern history as we know it.  The first was a chain reaction of radical political changes,  including the liberalisation of the Eastern Bloc’s authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments, leading to the destruction of the Berlin wall; and the second, occurring a little further west, was my 4th birthday party where I was enjoying not only an excellent bouncy castle, but also that most coveted of childhood birthday accoutrements – a caterpillar cake. 

explore v. (ɛkˈsplɔː) 1. The action of travelling through an unfamiliar area in order to learn more about it