Lac Abbé

Geothermal & TravertinesDikhil Region,Djibouti

A salt plain in Djibouti bristling with hundreds of limestone chimneys up to fifty metres tall, still steaming where the continent is pulling apart.

September·Quiet month

May–Sep

High summer bakes the Afar plain at 40–45°C, and the dusty khamsin wind blurs the horizon. Nothing formally closes: the chimneys still steam, the flamingos stay and the stargazing is as good as ever. But few operators run, and a visit means dawn-only outings in punishing heat.

Year-round Lac Abbé's steaming limestone chimneys, its flamingo-fringed salt flats and star-filled nights are here year-round; the cool season, November to March, spares the Afar heat.

Lac Abbé is a salt lake on the border of Djibouti and Ethiopia, in the Dikhil region, whose dried-out plain bristles with hundreds of limestone chimneys up to fifty metres tall, some still steaming, on the one spot on land where three plates of the Earth's crust are pulling apart fast enough to be watched, and it is reached across the Afar plain by four-wheel drive and slept beside in Afar huts. The lake is the end of the Awash river, which flows out of the Ethiopian highlands and dies here in the desert without reaching the sea, and it has shrunk as the water was taken upstream, leaving a plain of cracked salt; the chimneys were built underwater by hot springs rising through the lakebed, which deposited their calcite around the vents, so each tower could only grow while it stood submerged, and the whole field formed under the lake before it withdrew and left them standing in the air, taller than a three-storey building, with steam and hot water still coming out of a few. The ground is the Afar triple junction, where the Arabian, Nubian and Somali plates separate and a new ocean is being born. The camps are dome-shaped toukoul huts of bent branches and woven mats, arranged in the open with no artificial light, and after the moon sets the Milky Way is startlingly bright over the chimneys. Dawn is the hour: the towers stand black against the sky as the light comes, the steam shows, and flamingos and other wading birds feed in the saline shallows before the heat sets in, which by midday is severe. The drive in from Dikhil is unpaved, across open plain shared with camels, wild donkeys and Afar herders moving their goats, and the Afar of the camps guide the walks among the towers. Planet of the Apes shot its alien landscape here in 1968. Lac Abbé is a forest of stone chimneys on a floor that is splitting, and the night among them is the visit.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The cooler, more bearable window is roughly November to February — the Afar plain reaches extreme temperatures the rest of the year, and there is almost no shade near the chimneys.
The night sky is half the reason to stay over — with no electric light for kilometres the Milky Way turns startlingly bright, and it shows best on nights when the moon has already set.
Carry far more water than you expect to drink — none is sold at the chimneys and the dry air pulls it out of you fast; closed shoes help on the sharp salt crust.
Do not wander off alone among the chimneys — the field is a maze, the heat sets in fast, and some vents are scalding, so stay close to your guide near steaming ground.

Things to do

1
Walk among the limestone chimneys
Clusters of calcite towers, some taller than a three-storey building, rise directly from the cracked lakebed. Climb partway up a few of the shorter ones and you can see how they were made: rough mineral crust laid down grain by grain by the hot springs that once fed them. Several vents nearby still exhale steam through the crust, a reminder that this stretch of the Afar sits over one of the planet's most active rift zones.
2
Watch flamingos work the shallows at dawn
Lac Abbé's saline shallows draw flocks of flamingos and other wading birds, easiest to see feeding in the soft early light before the heat sets in.
3
Sleep in a traditional Afar toukoul
Most overnight camps use dome-shaped toukoul huts built from bent branches and woven mats, arranged in the open with no artificial light — the Milky Way is startlingly bright once the moon sets.
4
Cross the Afar plain by 4x4
The unpaved approach across open plain, often shared with camels, wild donkeys, and Afar herders, is as much a part of the experience as the chimney field itself.

Watch

Nearby

90 km