Magazine Mar/Apr 2018

prepared for sleep on our wooden camp beds under the stars. The heat was oppressive – even without exerting effort, we found ourselves dripping with sweat as we lay immobile on our mattresses. After a restless night, we woke up at 5:00 a.m. excited to embark on our first day of biking. The plan was to cycle to Dallol, a cinder cone-shaped volcano twenty-three kilometers northeast of Hamed Ela. The cycle across the salt plains was truly magnificent, and we arrived in high spirits at Dallol at 11:00 a.m. With the temperature already at a blistering 45°C, we began hiking up to the luminescent hot springs. Dallol was formed in 1926 by a phreatic eruption. This is when groundwater is heated by magma – essentially, a steam eruption without the lava injection. The resulting hydrothermal activity created a series of spectacular, bubbling sulphuric acid pools that are extremely acidic and salty. Our local Afar guide showed us springs that had not even been there a week ago, explaining that Dallol is constantly changing and extremely unstable. After exploring this alien-like environment, we continued hiking to see the salt canyons nearby. Boasting some of the most impressive features of the Danakil, the canyons are reddish pillars of salt rising up to 60 meters high. It is a sight to behold despite the oven-like atmosphere. By noon, the heat was completely debilitating and coming from every direction. The thermometer read 50°C – the kind of searing heat the human body isn’t built to endure. As the sun shone upon the rust-colored baked earth, we biked back to Hamed Ela. We had made a grave mistake by underestimating the effects of the heat on our bodies. By late noon, 70% of the team started experiencing mild to severe heatstroke symptoms. Without warning, one of our teammates fell like a ragdoll to the ground. Three others felt nauseous with pounding headaches, and by nightfall, several women were vomiting violently and burning up with fever. We quickly realized the gravity of the situation – we had no trained medic, limited facilities, and the closest hospital was a five-hour-drive away. With little alternatives, the team decided to wait it out. Throughout the night, the women who felt well took turns, each hour, to check on the sick, putting cold compresses on them, reminding them to take sips of water, and soothing them with reassuring words. Thankfully by dawn the fevers had broken, and although still weak, the patients felt much better. It had been too close for comfort, and we resolved to adjust our schedule by departing earlier every morning so as not to bike at the peak of the day’s heat. The next three days unfolded smoothly. We woke at 4:00 a.m., were on the road by 6:00 a.m. and tried to cover our target distances by noon. The afternoons were spent resting, under what shade we could find, counting the hours in the sweltering heat. Those times were true mental challenges for most of us. It was too hot to do anything and impossible to cool down. The air was stifling, our drinking water was tepid and the heat enveloped us completely, hanging like a heavy veil around us.

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MAR / APR 2018 THE AMERICAN CLUB