This was one of the coolest places I have ever seen! We left early this morning to Lake Assal (Lac Assal), the lowest point in Africa at 509 feet below sea level. The lake is the most salty body of water on Earth (outside of Antartica). At 39% salinity, when it gets in your eyes or an open wound you definately feel it!! It was a beautiful 2 hour scenic ride to the Lake on some pretty shoddy roads, but well worth it. The beach is all evaporated salt, hard and crunchy. The bed of the lake feels more like hard slippery plastic that has been melted into uneven chuncks and smoothed over, except for a few places where hard crystals form that can slice through feet very easily (see the wares sold by the local merchants). Because the lake it is so salty, you can float very easily, and we had fun playing in it, though it took 10 liters of fresh water just to get most of the salt off of me when I was done. We stopped and had lunch at a hot springs, where apparently there is more than one spring, and not all of them are the same temperature. I put my foot in at one spot and it was warm, then decided to walk into at another spot just 40 feet away, and it was literally scalding...ouch!! The ride home was interesting...but I posted some other photos and a different blog about that. Dave, Amos, and I had a really good time today...there are definately some very beautiful places in Djibouti.
