Lake Assale Salt Flats & Camel Caravans
Afar salt miners cut salt beds into salt bricks with axes, and camel and donkey caravans carry them up to the highlands, a scene that has continued for a thousand years.
The Lake Assale salt flats are a vast white crust of salt in the depression. Afar and Tigrayan salt miners have worked here for a thousand years, prying up salt layers with axes and wooden poles and cutting them into neat salt bricks, called amole, which were once used as currency. Hundreds of camels and donkeys then carry the bricks through Berahile to Mekele on the highlands. In the early morning you can watch the workers, and in the evening the silhouettes of the caravans crossing the salt flats are most spectacular. Get permission before photographing the salt miners, and some tours pay a small fee for photos.
Opening hours
Group tours only