I'm heading to Djibouti!

WHALE SHARKS! I had to be creative, but I found a guide, a skiff, and a driver to drive my truck to the whale shark beach, about an hour and a half from Djibouti, Djibouti.  We left late in the morning because I HAD to get a Covid test to fly into the US. I was offered to take it a few days early and have it say that I had taken it the day before I left DJ, and even though DJ was not slogged with Omicron yet, I was not going to take any chances. I was given a Rapid PCR, but only after I vouched, I had not had coffee with in the last hour. Coffee skews the test, or so this clinic told me. I rinsed my mouth out several times because I was at the 54-minute mark, and I wanted to ensure I did not get a false positive. But I digress... It was a heck of a ride to the beach. Again we had to go off-road for about 45 minutes. We went through the French training base. The French do live ammunition practice where we were. They named their base camp after a ten-year girl who was tending her goa...

LAC ASSAL ME! The last stop on my overnight is to Lac Assal in the Afar depression where three tectonic plates diverge. It is a beautiful sight, and if I did not know better, would have mistaken Lac Assal for a Caribbean beach, with bleached white sand and the clearest, deep blue water. It is very deceiving to the eyes from a distance, but as we neared the edge, I realized the immense expanse of white sand was not sand at all, but hard, crusty salt, rock-salt crystalized, jagged and razor sharp. It was gorgeous. The water is ten times saltier than the ocean and at 155m below sea level, it is the lowest point in Africa, and third lowest point in the world after the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. Geologists say the lake originally contained freshwater and there is no real evidence for how it turned. Hard soled water shoes are a must. The salt crunched beneath my feet and the whiteness of it was blinding. I didn't swim, just waded in for a quick pic, but the salt stuck lik...