Danakil Depression - Ethiopia
 

Hello,

We're in Sudan at the moment and in a few days we will be in Ethiopia.
We would love to see the Danakil depression, but what we heared from other travellers who did it before with an organised tour with other tourists, they all recommended to try and do it with your own car and other travellers.

So now we're looking for people whoe might be interessted to visit the Danakil Depression with us in April/May?

We're in contact with a few tour opperators who are helping us out to organise the tour with our own car.

Please send us an email if you would be interessted
eef.lenaerts@gmail.com

Eef and Dries

Hi, we too are interested in a making trip to the Danakil Depression this month (May) and we're wondering if any other overlanders would be keen to join us?

Also if anyone has completed this trip before, it would be great to hear any advice or trip reports, especially if you traveled through the area on a motorcycle.

Many thanks

Arch

(currently in Gonder)

Ethiopian number: +251928346665

Email: archie@leeming.co.uk

Hello

I went to the danakil depression about 2 months back. With our car or theirs It was pretty much the same price ($450) with this bunch ethio travel and tours. We opted to join their tour and it was pretty decent. The roads were pretty rough so we were glad not to take our car.

I did a write up if interested
The Toughest Place on Earth | Danakil Depression | Cape to Kathmandu

Cheers!

uggiz, I was on a tour with Ethio Travel and Tours maybe a week or so before you. Glad we didn't get that rain.

I'm not sure though I'd highly recommend Ethio Travel and Tours after the saga our group had. It was only after I became incredibly pissed off were things solved.

Is it possible to make this trip completely on your own - without travel agent?? Had anyone tried this and succeeded?

Not really - the local Afar people run this area like their own country (and are fairly hostile to outsiders from my experience). As a minimum you need a local guide with you - you didn't need to join a whole tour etc.

The guide will not be a 'tour guide' in any normal sense ;-)

agreed you have to really fight with ethio travel and tours to do anything. they are frustrating but the medicore one of a bad bunch. the other main operator, next to the axum hotel (cant remember name but run by a sneaky german girl - carmen) is complete rubbish - only told us they were cancelling our 'tour' the day we arrivved, so as to make sure we couldnt join another company!

it is possible to go yourself, but you need i think space for a 'guide' as above, plus 2 military officers. you also need to feed them etc. so the tour companies will give you a 'guide car' which you can follow but asked us to pay $1500 for the trouble. It was actually cheaper to go in one of their vehicles

the rains we hit were pretty epic