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It’s 35°C (95°)F out and we’re taking shade in a roadside shack, somewhere off the highway in northern Ethiopia, close to the border with Eritrea. Although mountains surround us, we’re actually heading below sea level - into Ethiopia’s infamous Afar Region. Fata, the owner of the shack prepares us lunch while Colombian telenovelas - dubbed in Amharic - play on a small TV in front of us. Localized dubbing of telenovelas is a booming trade in Africa. They’re inexpensive to license and wildly popular with locals. As we leave, a commotion erupts between two families in the village. We ask our driver Tesfahun what’s going on. “Eritreans” he says, “they’re always fighting.” We’re headed to the Danakil Desert - one of the hottest and lowest points on earth, and we’re foolishly visiting in summer, where temperatures average 50°C (122°F). Once submerged by the Red Sea, all that’s left today is a sweeping salt flat. Embedded within it, are a few extraordinarily photogenic quirks of nature, which draw an adventurous generation of tourists. Most famously, there’s Dallol. A patch of extremely vibrant orange, yellow and green crystalized salts, bubbling out of the ground in the middle of the desert. Words hardly do it justice. Three years ago, few people would have imagined that such a place could even exist on earth. Today, it’s frequented by Instagram influencers, TV shows and fashion photography shoots, lapping up a dwindling global supply of unique locations in an increasingly visual age. Then there’s Erta Ale, an active volcano, which has made headlines on several occasions over the years, after foreign tourists visiting the crater rim were kidnapped or killed by Eritrean rebels from across the nearby border. Although tour groups are accompanied by Ethiopian National Defense Force soldiers, it’s merely a few men and their AK-47s versus a few other men and theirs. Their diet is mostly cigarettes and their presence is seemingly serves more to reassure tourists, than to deter insurgents. The volcano activity has decreased in recent years, but you can still stand only feet away from the crater edge - prevented from going closer not by fear, but the intense oven-like heat that increases exponentially with every step toward it. Due to the arid desert conditions, tour groups arrive in the evening, and ascend the volcano at night when it’s cooler, then camp near the summit. Lesser known, is Salt City, a series of small canyons with salt cliffs rising about 30 ft on either side, roughly resembling a small collection of streets and buildings. Most tours will make a short stop here on the way out of Danakil. Having just been dazzled and scorched by the previous two attractions, few tourists find the energy to pose for photos here though it is still - by international standards - quite a unique feature. Lastly, is the salt mine. This is what gives Danakil Desert the title of ‘hottest inhabited place on earth’ - deep in the salt flats, Afar salt miners work and live here year round, chipping and shaping the salt into blocks with pick axes, then loading them onto the backs of camels. They then tie dozens of the camels together and march them across the salt flat, creating long trains which can stretch for a half a mile at a time. Our jeep descends. The thermometer rises. Batteries charged. SIM card inserted. Camera ready. But really there’s no need to record, for this is a place you will never forget.