6:30am, Geothermal Research Station Presidential Suite, October 2nd:

OK, enough playing catchup. I can see why Meriwether never bothered to summarize the events he’d skipped over in his journal: it leads to falling woefully behind and then before you know it, you get sick of journaling because you’re always telling a story and not telling about what’s happing to you or going through your head right then. I made it up through the 28th of September with my story, and we put in two points that afternoon at the westernmost edge of the Danakil Depression, and another one here in Semara the next morning. I lounged in my airconditioned room all day on the 29th, and got drunk as a skunk at the Wintona Restaurant (our tri-daily haunt) that night, which was actually a lot of fun. I made fun of Shimeles and we all told stories, even coaxed one out of Teddy, and I got along very well with the waitresses and the owners of the place. Shimeles found out that the fellow who runs the restaurant knows all the important people in the region: Becks, Cindy Ebinger, and on back… and then that they knew someone in common who had fallen into bad straights in Eli’Dar, and furthermore, that the fellow lived in Manda before the Eritrean border war, when the military took possession of his house. Suddenly, he wanted to come along with us as our guide, and that was that: we were going to Eli’Dar and Manda, into the region we hadn’t dared enter for fear of rebels and bandits and fighting and kidnapping. Now we had a man who knew the land and the situation and the language, and was eager to help. I woke up the next morning with a pounding hangover which didn’t subside until mid-day. Shimeles broke his cell phone and had to get a new one, and we visited a big head-honcho, the regional head of the office of Housing and Development, who gave us his blessing provided we come back to assure him that Semara, the new administrative capital, into which a great amount of money has been sunk, was not in imminent danger of a major earthquake… though the town is obviously built right on the edge of a massively active fault.
Yesterday, we woke up very early and picked up the fellow from the Wintona and another guy from the research station who claimed to know the area like the back of his hand. He was so shy that he wouldn’t even look you in the eye when you talked to him, but once we started putting out stations, he turned into an awful liability, showing off to the villagers by insulting them and being rude and abrasive, and almost getting us kicked out twice and maybe killed once. I was all for just leaving him in the desert.
It was a LONG, rough drive to Manda, and a strange one. The road breaks off from the main highway near the entrance to the Danakil, which is spectacular itself as you suddenly drop through a two-thousand foot fault-scarp into the barren, saline salt-flats of the Danakil, below sea level. The road going north to Eli’dar was once the main highway to the port in Assab, but after the ’98 border war, when it was largely torn up by tanks and blown up by various rebels and armies, it was abandoned, and I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere that felt more abandoned than that place. It’s been left to the ghosts.


I can hear that damn Alish guy outside in his high-pitched, squeaky voice typical of many of the Afar men: he’s probably telling Shimeles that we should pay him for his services of yesterday. Services?? I’d like to slap him.

6:30pm: Ohhhh, the driving, so much driving today. I was expecting to be able to lie in bed and read for most of the afternoon, but after breakfast we were treated to a tour of the new damsite on the Awash, just southwest of Logiya. It was a damsite… what can I say? It’s a major project, and the reservoir seems to be filled to within fifty or one hundred feet of capacity already. It was impressive to watch the Awash River flow out of the reservoir through a tunnel roughly 20 feet in diameter and explode into a splashpool below in an eruption of super-aerated water seething and boiling. Class 9 whitewater at least! I think the thing which most raised my eyebrows was the complete lack of safety around the dam: children splashed and swam and played within one hundred feet of where a giant sucking whirlpool drained the reservoir at about 20,000 gallons per second. Men sat on the algae-covered edge of the seething spillway, one tiny slip away from complete and certain oblivion. Obviously there are yet no liability issues in Ethiopia.
Then, horror of horrors, instead of driving back to the rooms like I was so looking forward to, we drove past them and on and on and on, all the way to Serdo, before turning off on the road to Aftera. Why were we going to Aftera? I wasn’t sure. That’s one of the things that’s continued to annoy me about Shimeles. For the most part, we’re getting along just fine now, and he’s a gold-star working partner, but in things that he doesn’t consider my direct business, he’s very stingy with information, even though I’m always along for the ride. When I’d ask where we were going, he’d say, ‘Don’t worry Lewis! It has nothing to do with Geology!’ I didn’t give a fart if it had to do with Olde English Literature or Dendrology. I wanted to know why we were driving on a bad dirt road for two hours toward the middle of nowhere instead of going back to the rooms for a walk and a nap. I’m so sick of driving on this trip, no words can really express it. I’m sincerely afraid of developing deep vein thrombosis, or perhaps becoming crippled and paralyzed from sitting like this every single day, with hardly a few moments of walking to break the monotony. So, it turned out we were driving to Afdera because a friend of Shimeles’ runs a construction company which had contracted the use of some big excavators to a Chinese firm building a paved road to the salt mines at Afdera. He’d had reports that one of them wasn’t running properly, and that a mechanic who’d been sent up hadn’t really fixed the problem, and he didn’t trust his liaison officer… so we were going to talk to the operator of the machine directly. Pretty random, eh? You’d think that’d be something on the need-to-know list. Oh well, so we finally got back to the rooms just before 4pm, and I had an aborted attempt to take a shower. No water pressure today. Power keeps going on and off too. I don’t know what that’s about. Oh, and I forgot to mention, supposedly this dam is to provide irrigation for the largest sugar plantation on the African continent. Improvement? I dunno… seems like it would take away from the harsh beauty of this place, which is just about the only beauty it has going for it.
Eating at the Wintona Restaurant for three meals a day, every day, we’ve become the guests of honor, and the matron told me at lunch today that I was part of her family now. She’s very nice, and I was touched. I’ve now been part of two of the sacred coffee ceremonies, and I have to say, the charcoal-roasted coffee is some of the best I’ve ever had. So rich and strong and flavorful. I just wish they’d stop putting sugar in my coffee. They think straight coffee will kill the farenji or something.
I think the Afars are starting to respect me a bit. I’ve been here for well over a week now, and I don’t look wilted or desperate or heat-crazed… I launch into the tibs with the best of them, tear my injera one-handed, wear a sarong and sandals, don’t buddy up to the other farenjis, and am busting my ass in the middle of the day when most everyone else is asleep in the shade. Most of all, I’m starting to like it here, which is unusual for the farenj, and I think is making an impression. If I could just pick up a bit more of the language, I think I’d be making out quite well.
I’ll be glad to be back home, though: I’m fantasizing about all the things I’ll do when I’m back home, the most notable of them being: A) Avoid automobiles if at all possible, and live in my hiking boots, on my bike, on skis, in my kayak, and out of my car, and B) Eat LOTS of vegetables and fruits and other non-goat items. Possibly never eat goat again.
I made a $45 sat-phone call to Halle this morning to wish her a happy 2-year anniversary of our relationship, and had a wonderful time talking to her. I know, I know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in absentia, I’m really doing a lot of thinking about all the things I love about that girl… and there are lots of things! Making a vague resolution to tweak the relationship so I don’t get ‘too much of one person burnout’ so that I can really appreciate what I have in her, and find out if this is something that could last more… permanently. I’ve never considered that step before, and I know it needs a considerably different perspective on things. I want this to work, I really, really want it.
Tweaking, tweaking. It’s all about being brave enough to say: “This isn’t working, this needs to change. This makes me happy; this makes me unhappy.” Be willing to re-invent the relationship to accommodate change. I’ve never re-invented a relationship before, but I’m pretty sure I could do it with Halle. And in other news, I saw two ostriches yesterday!

I’m very happy about the success of this expedition right now. After I found out we were going to get the point at Manda, it occurred to me that I might be vastly exceeding everyone’s expectations as far as the field work goes, and the brief correspondence I’ve had with Becks over the sat phone has encouraged me further. She told me yesterday that I was turning out to be a ‘field-work monster.’ Ha. But once you set certain definite expectations, it hurts to break them. I lined out three days ago exactly what we were going to accomplish before leaving and when and how. Three points at Manda, Sula, and Eli’dar. But I screwed it up at the end, and bad. Eli’dar was a critical point. Didn’t have to be exact, but within 10 km of there. Well, we got in Manda and Sula, and I actually had the full record of the old ’92 point, Y034, that was put in near Eli’dar and could have found it easily, but for some reason, I got greedy for the perfect spot and wanted to put it next to a military installation so we wouldn’t have to pay a guard. I made the call to pass Y034 and drive on 6kms to Eli’dar to find a safer place. But when we arrive in Eli’dar, there was no bedrock. At that time, we were still close enough, I should have said, Shimeles, turn around, let’s go back and get Y034. But I still have this weird thing were I’m afraid of doing something to make Shimeles criticize me (he makes me very self-conscious somehow) and I kept my mouth shut hoping we’d find something in the next 20 kilometers. Bad gamble. I should have been paying closer attention on the drive up there. There was nothing. Not for 20 kilometers, for 30, 40, 50. God that was agonizing, driving further and further without deploying the third station, knowing we were getting closer and closer to the place where we’d already deployed two and where Becks had explicitly told me, ‘We don’t need any more there.’
I was kicking myself in the teeth, hard. Agony! We finally had to deploy it in the last daylight at PARR, (Becks had told me, directly, ‘Don’t bother with PARR’) and it was within 100 yards of a microwave tower that would probably interfere with reception, and that damn Alish guy got us in a fight with the town elders so that we got distracted while the epoxy was setting and the pin got glued in sticking a full inch out of the bedrock, easy to damage or destroy. And I knew we had a big hole in our distribution, right where Y034 would have filled it in, and GOD I wanted that point and GOD, I knew that nobody, including myself, wanted to drive that horrible, dangerous road back up there a single time more than we had to. I felt a bit like committing suicide over missing that point last night, and when we couldn’t rouse Becks on the phone, I waited until Shimeles had gone to bed and then left some messages on her machine that I hoped would incline her to either call back and say, ‘Don’t worry about Y034, it’s not necessary,’ thus making me feel better about myself, or ‘You guys need to get Y034,’ which would force it on Shimeles, cause I knew damn well he didn’t want to. Well, I checked my answering machine this morning, and she said ‘It’d be really good for you guys to get Y034. There’s a big gap there.’ So I called a conference with Shimeles this morning, and brought that up, sincerely apologetically, and it was a damn tough call to make, but he rolled the way I hoped: We’re going back for it. Bittersweet, cause damn I’m tired of driving, and especially up there… but mostly sweet. We’ll have a near perfect spread of points from Kasargita to Manda. In fact, even better than I thought I’d get out of Shimeles this morning: I figured I’d have to give up the hope of any other points just to get him to agree to go after Y034, but we came up with the master final itinerary, and we’ll try to get M035 near Serdo, and ‘C’ near Tendaho… exactly the points that I want… and that Becks wants. Then we can cut and run. Maybe we’ll get Awash, maybe we won’t. It’d be nice, but at this point, I really don’t care too much. We’ll have done damn well, assuming we can get these last three with ourselves, and our equipment, intact. Man I hope I’m not making a bad call on this: It’s easy to get lackadaisical when nothing bad happens the first time through, and get caught up with getting in the best points. This place is dangerous for us, seriously so right now, and I’m making us take a continued risk by asking for a third trip to Eli’dar. I felt a kind of sick feeling driving that whole road yesterday: it would be the perfect place to ambush a couple of defenseless geologists in a nice car, dispatch them, and make off with their expensive equipment. That shit happens a fair amount on that road, and we are a prime target. Hell, based on the complete lack of traffic on that road, we are THE prime target. That road is not safe, and I know it. It’s the exact place where those British diplomats and their guides got abducted a few months back. Tortured for three months, I’m told, before they let them go. Other ones, they don’t let go. It feels ridiculous to actually be in this situation, making these decisions. I’m a small-town boy from Montana. I feel like I’m making it up, but somehow, it’s real. The desert is crawling with guys with AKs. Just takes one good shot to make it all very real. Gambles, gambles. Gambling with the team’s life. Just like Becks said not to do. A monster in the field. Maybe I’m not the right guy for this job.

I miss the deserts and wildernesses of America. They may be more constructed, but they’re sterile of people, and I like that: Recreationalist paradises. This place is dirty with the stink of human conflict. The only way to fit in is to get a gun and join the fray. So much for enjoying the solitude.
How to describe the road to Manda? I said it was abandoned. Ok, you turn off at an unmarked and very indistinct dirt track in the middle of nowhere, before dropping into Danakil. You would miss it if you didn’t have someone who knew exactly where it was. Somehow, this is creepy when you consider that 10 years ago, this was THE road in Ethiopia, the port connection. You drop through twisting, boulder-strewn canyons, just touching the Danakil at the Dobi salt flats, then climb back up the steep rift flank towards the tiny Paradiso settlement. The road is awful and gets worse. This used to be a major paved highway. They must have ripped it up to prevent the Eriterians from invading on it. It’s full of ravines and rockfall and horribly potholed patches of old asphalt, and is really impossible to drive more than 5mph on most of it. Worse than any dirt track we’ve been on. Past Paradiso, no sign of life at all. There is not a sign of organic life anywhere: no plants, no water, no villages. The landscape becomes more and more barren: crazy fault scarps jutting every which way, broken volcanic calderas, chunky lava flows, ash and sediment and everything raw and primeval. Like the earth 3 billion years ago, pre-Precambrian. In the distance, huge volcanic shells jut across the horizon like dark, jagged teeth. Occasionally a camel. A burned out shell of an army transport. From behind an enormous engine block, a man and three children stare at us. What the hell are they doing there? They have wild, crazy eyes. Their skin is cracked, dusty and whitened; broken lips; the man has snow-white hair and huge white eyes. There is no comfort in the look they give us. I imagine as soon as we are out of sight, the children run to tell a scout, who spreads the word: White guy, nice car. How long will it take to reach the ears of people with guns? There are NO other cars on this road. Ever.
Occasionally, the burned hulk of a hijacked automobile. About every ten kilometers, a rusting tank, partly blown away. Once, we pass some sort of silo, a mass of rusted steel now, lying on its side. There’s no other clue as to what it was for. This is the only sign there was life here once. And death.
Eli’dar is a strange place. Just before town, the road suddenly becomes a beautiful, brand new interstate, the nicest I’ve seen in this country. No cars. New road. Elid’ar (I’ve been putting the coma in the wrong place, I think) is a strange town. No cars, yet very lively and surprisingly well-kept. Certainly nothing fancy, but not a shanty-town. It’s full of people, like any other bustling village of a few hundred folks, and they all seem quite happy and at ease. There appears to be some merchandise in the town, though I have no idea where they get it. Does it come in with the military? There are camels in the street in place of cars, and for the first time in my life, I think I see someone parking a camel. Some USAid signs around, also the first time I’ve seen those, and just past town, about a thousand abandoned well-holes (shovel dug) and apparently one that’s got water. A lone pump sits atop one, surrounded by dusty pits. It reminds me, quite exactly, of a scene from that Disney movie, ‘Holes.’
Past Elid’ar, wow. Really nothing. Except one or two tiny towns which seem to be grasping at a very tenuous existence… not more than a hundred people in either. Some wrecked equipment, and a military outpost in each, minimally staffed. At one, we have to go through a checkpoint. They guards look at us like we’re crazy, but they immediately open the ‘gate’ (a rope stretched across the road) for us, and let us proceed. Occasionally, we pass what appear to be many foundations of piled stones, all in various stages of collapse. Abandoned villages? Defensive bunkers? I’m not sure. At one point, there is another 4km stretch of beautiful interstate highway, looking brand spanking new and un-traveled. Then it ends just as abruptly. Shimeles tells me there was a huge project to make this a superhighway to Assab in ‘98. Then war broke out with Eritrea, and this just as quickly became a no-man’s land. How are there people out here? It’s amazing. For the whole distance… I don’t know how long, 120 kms? … there’s been almost nothing, no trees, no bushes, no water, no pasture, no shade, no easy place to walk… Yet at odd intervals, I see a brief glimpse of a dark figure above the road, watching us and then swiftly disappearing from view. It makes me nervous. Occasionally, we pass USAid signs which are quite recent. Are there any people here to be helped? “Cistern Rehabilitation, 2007” … “Rangeland Development Project, 2006-7.” As we get close to Manda, the road goes through the very middle of a massive scoria lava flow, maybe 60 kilometers wide and 20 long. The flow is very recent, not more than 10 years old. It looks like a different planet. Truly. I feel like Spaceman Spiff, crash-landed on Zerg and about to come face to face with the hostile Gorblons. Then we’re in Manda. We have injera and some honestly delicious shiro. I have a pineapple Fanta. Where on earth do their supplies come from? Must come up with the military transports. I locate the old Bilham ’92 point. We’re at the very edge of the hostile border-zone, into which no sane man dare pass. Yet there are children playing in the scoria, people having tea, things seem normal, except for the massive bunker excavation in a nearby hill. I can tell I’m the first white man here in a long time, because no one calls me farenji. I don’t think they have that word. But everyone stares openmouthed, and children look very confused. Teddy overhears some children whispering the word for albino. Ha.
OK, that’s enough about Manda and the Serdo-Assab road. It’s a beautiful night tonight, with the starriest sky since coming to Africa, and though it can’t even begin to compare with the Erg in Morocco, it’s still pleasant to see the stars again. All the constellations are different… I can’t even see the good ol’ Big Dipper, my old standby. The milky way was visible, and Teddy confessed to be looking at it for the first time in his life! Ah, that boy is so very innocent… today, his shirt was dirtier than any shirt he’d worn had EVER been before, and a few nights ago, when we stayed up to just past midnight, it was the LATEST he’d ever stayed up, out of bed. Imagine that! He’s got a great attitude though, and I like him a lot. Maybe I can convince him to come visit us in the States. No drinking, no dancing, no partying… damn Protestants… but I still think he’d be fun.

Good night, gentle readers!