Lake Afrera

Salt lake

The Afrerasee ( Afrera YeCh'ew Hayk ') is a salt lake of 100 km ² in northern Ethiopia. He is next to the Karumsee and the Bakilisee one of the three salt lakes in the Afar region. He is strongly constricted in the middle, here is located on the east side of the volcano Borawli, and has in its southern half of an island called Afrera Deset.

The lake is located in the hot and extremely arid Danakil depression and is also known under the name of Lake Giulietti. The Italian explorer Raimondo Franchetti, who reached him in 1929 and reported first by him, named him after his compatriot and geographers Giuseppe Maria Giulietti, who was killed by members of the Afar in a village near the lake.

Lakeside has been mined for centuries rock salt ( halite ). An Ethiopian company has determined the existence of 290 million tons of salt alone at Afrerasee. Currently, pump out some local companies brine in artificial ponds. There, the dry salt is broken into blocks and transported to the Ethiopian highlands. This happens on the first leg still mostly by camel caravans. The bars of salt obtained in the Danakil lakes for centuries were food and salt money ( Amole ) at the same time.