The Awash river exploration through the Danakil country, was achieved when Thesiger was only twenty three years old making his reputation as an explorer!   Three or four expeditions before him had been exterminated by the Danakil... It was a challenge that he could not resist...  The Awash rises from the mountains around Addis Abeba, curving along the side of  the escarpment until, beneath the still smoking Fantale crater, it crashes deafeningly down a narrow gorge in a waft of smoking water vapour !

 There, hundreds of feet below, Awash is slowing down through the jagged shoals and small islands and continues between narrow banks of thick forested jungle where even today crocodiles lay shyly on the warm rocks!

   The Awash area, red arrows showing the beginning and end !

  The tangled growth of acacias, oleanders and giant tamarisk is vibrant with calls of saffron coated bee-catchers and families of the indigenous Colombus monkeys ! 

Beyond the rim of the gorge lies a different landscape:  arid scrub merging with riffling acres of golden grass and an unstable volcanic country etched with dry gulches and covered with thorn brush and an occasional clump of towering trees !