As a traveller there are some things that are terrifying – like two-dollar hotel rooms infested with fleas, crazy waterborne diseases that you can’t pronounce like schistosomiasis, and the darkest, dingiest bathrooms void of light and filled with foulness. Then there are other things that call to you like the sensual sirens of Ulysses. Sometimes they summon you into the fiery furnaces of hell.

I had heard of the Danakil Depression, seen it on ‘Planet Earth’, and had visions of it in my sleep. It is a place of searing temperatures, inhospitable land, and home to the Afar, a nomadic tribe known for their ferocity and tendency to cut off unwanted visitors’ testicles. The desert depression rests 100 metres below sea level in a country that mostly sits 2,000 metres above. It contains volcanoes bubbling with lava and hot magma, and holds psychedelic pools of boiling acid, water, and other liquids of yellow, orange, green, and brown with smells that burn your nostrils.

The Danakil is accessible by 4 x 4 jeeps over hundreds of kilometres of bumpy roads, tracks in the desert, and lines in the sand and continues through the contested border with Eritrea. It is crossed daily by the Afar salt traders with camel trains that line up to the horizon. The temperatures hover between 110 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and four litres of water a day are essential for survival. It is a bleak landscape that every so often makes way for some of nature’s most awe-inspiring sights.

We hired a driver and the necessary back-up vehicle (if you get stuck alone with a car problem you may very well end up like one of the many dried camel carcasses that dot the landscape), packed up with over 35 gallons of water and all the necessary supplies and headed down. The heat was quick and brutal. My nose started to bleed, my skin dried and turned red, and my eyes hurt. It was going to be tough. I tried to pound down water but still felt dehydrated. We stopped at a checkpoint and were asked to speak with the head of the Afar. He asked us about our intentions and permitted us to pass onward. We drove past settlements where tribal women stared and kids screamed and we headed deeper into the depression. The mountains crumbled, and the earth began to give way to an unknown zone. The mercury rose steadily and every so often we were hit by the gara, or ‘fire wind’.