“We will drive to the volcano today and hike to the top tonight” our guide Mesfin announces in greeting at the Mekele airport. We’ve flown to this northeastern town from Addis Ababa and are off to a running start on our tour. There is a hint of regret that we did not attempt driving here. With all the ground we have covered in the Beagle, what’s one more country to pass through? Still, the language barrier is severe in this vastly different county where Amarhic is spoken more than English, and the alphabet is more akin to Sanskrit than anything else. For many reasons it was a good idea to leave the Beagle at JJ’s in Nairobi and fly into Ethiopia.

Five vehicles and 14 people including guides and drivers make up our group. At the lunch stop Jim and I take time to find a chemist, which involved wandering through rock-strewn alleys following a little boy who knew the way to the chemist storefront. We buy some Panadol  – I am definitely feeling trepidation for the four-hour volcano hike. In a windblown sandy town we pick up a camel driver and a guard. It takes 1.5 hours to do the final 15 kilometers. Deep sand and sharp lava rocks pave the way and in the distance we can see the glow of Erta Ale. I imagine everyone is thinking of “The Lord of the Rings” and Frodo’s trek to Mount Doom. I know I am.

Volcano base camp finally looms in front of us in the dusk. We are set up with a kitchen staff and a couple of guides who show us the routine – first we eat, they say, then we hike. Dark falls like a blanket holding in the heat. The camel who will carry our sleeping gear is loaded, much to his dissatisfaction – he bawls throughout the process. Our guard is a tiny Afar man who might weigh more than his gun, but only just. The trek begins on flat desert ground and we wind our way along, stopping twice to rest. The cup of heavily sugared coffee I drank for dinner is serving its purpose. At first it is exhilarating to be in the desert in darkness but after a couple of hours it is simply a trudge, and well past our bedtime. Shadows created by my headlamp become surreal. No one speaks much. At last we arrive to the rim of the caldera, weaving around with fatigue in the darkness. It is still another few minutes to the very edge of the volcano; dropping packs and readying cameras energizes everyone. We climb down a cliff toward the glow.

Erta Ale is one of a handful of places where one can (somewhat safely) stand and look down into an active volcano’s lava lake. That is, until this past January. Unpredictably and witnessed by a group of tourists a vent exploded a few kilometers from Erta blasting lava and debris into the night sky.  The roiling magma that had filled Erta’s crater to the rim was sucked out through a fissure, exiting into this new vent. Everything changed instantly. Looking into the crater now reveals magma flowing east to west, pouring down into a cauldron of fire but it is not close to the rim. Wind moves the magma and it rises like the sea, dashing onto rocks and flying into the air. Glowing red, magenta, orange and black, it is still mesmerizing.  Two hours later we climb back to the sleeping camp where guides have laid our foam pads on the ground. I drop onto mine wearing the clothes I’ve been in for two days and I don’t remember anything else.