Even though there are very few tourists in the Danakil

Even though there are very few tourists in the Danakil, I was concerned we might be damaging the site by walking all around it. I was thinking of stalagmites which take hundreds of years to grow and asked my guide, who has been doing this for over 12 years, if he knew how old these structures were. "About three years", he said! In another area we walked in, he said the place was a lake last time he had been, about two weeks ago. In such a geologically active area, the landscape changes very fast.