I took my first liberty trip with 3 other inmates of Camp Lemonnier out to Lac Assal. This lake is the highest salinity lake anywhere except Antartica, and lies roughly 509 feet below sea level. It is about 100km due west of the base, with the vast majority of the roads being paved. We stopped at some overlooks on the way out, but unfortunately my camera was on the wrong setting and those pictures did not come out, darn, I guess I will have to take liberty out there again. But at these stops Djiboutians were selling a variety of items of which I bought some. I would take pictures of them or describe them, but they are surprises for my wife.
This is a shot from the road to the west across the lake. The mountains to get to the lake are at about 2200 ft and then we drive down and down until we are 500ft below sea level.
This is looking from the spot where we pulled our truck over and explored. The white salt flat is about 2 feet deep out to that island. The island is made of almost completely of salt. The crystals stained the color of the earth.
This is the civilian filling a water bottle with water from the lake. The only way to describe it is syrupy. The water actually feels thick with the salt. After swimming, when you stood up in the hot breeze the water dried very quickly and salt crystals formed on skin, body hair, ears, and clothes. Shorts became stiff with a solid white layer of salt.
This is a close-up shot of the salt crystals along the short. The small cubes that you see are about 1/8 inch on a side. They are growing all around the entire edge of the lake and on anything in the lake like sticks and rocks. It looks fragile, but it is actually quite strong. The entire bottom of this bay was similar, but much sharper. Two others from the group put their hand down and it instantly sliced through their hands and feet. Then the excruciating pain would set in from the hyper-saline solution and the burning that lasted the rest of the day.
This is a shot of the deeper water. The civilian and I walked out to the deep water and jumped in, though there were main waves, we floated upright like corks. To give you an idea of how buoyant being in this water was, getting my teva sandal underwater was difficult. To actually get vertical, I had to bring my knees to my chest and thrust them downwards before the wanted to go up to the surface.
Here is another liberty group from Camp further to the east. You can see the prior salt marks on the mountain behind them.
On the way back to Camp we were able to see some good wildlife. Here are a couple Antelope, which unfortunately ran before I could get stable and get some good shots, plus in the small canyon we were in , the wild was howling and I couldn’t stabilize the lens at all.
In Africa are the Acacia trees, which have wickedly sharp 1.5 inch thorns. The goats and camels love the leaves and often work against those thorns to get at the leaves. These goats solved the problem by climbing on top of this tree and eat downwards instead of straining upwards from the ground. These was just one group, there were probably 2 dozen of these goats in the trees in this area alone.
The last of the cool animals this trip was a baboon. They are normally not out in the heat of the day, rather I have only seen them on my early morning excursions to nearby towns. This large male was out and about and ran out in front of us. We all acted like idiots making noises to try to get it closer, kinda wish I had a video of us acting like morons calling it.
It was a great trip and can’t wait to get out there again. I have other liberty trips planned in the upcoming weeks, including whale shark snorkeling and a dive trip, which I will fully employ the underwater camera I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment