Exploring the surface of Mars

Trypophobia alert.

Day 2 of exploring one of the strangest places on Earth, after our trip around the Afar salt pans.

We woke up before dawn, piling into our cars to head to Dallol, the highlight of our trip. The convoy set off in the dark. Ali Farka Touré and Ry Cooder's soulful music provided an excellent soundtrack to the 4-wheelers racing across the inhospitable salt flats. We drove past our little saltwater pool and briefly wondered how amazing it would be to dip into it while watching the stars…

As we stopped by a sort of deserted parking area, the sky started becoming timidly lighter. A weak sunrise cast a pallid light over a lunar landscape. We had just driven across a salty desert, to stop at the beginning of a hill, which looked like it was made of crusty termite hills. Strangely shaped rust-iron red and volcanic grey rocks already hinted that we were entering a surreal environment. We started climbing up the hill.

You walk across a smoking plain: smoke that reminds you of the geological activity happening beneath our feet and shaping the landscape that we see.

A thick smell of sulphur permeates the air, and gets stronger. The landscape shifts into a variety of geographical formations; you see cones of gray volcanic rock; tables of some white crusty deposit, and finally, you emerge into the unearthly vista of the Dallol acid pools.

The overall landscape is a bloody red, giving you the impression of being lost in Mars. The sharp contrast between the rusty red of the earth and the mutated colours is creepy.

Even the voices of the tourists has a muffled quality. The pallid sun reinforces the feeling of being on another planet.

Breathing is slightly challening: it feels as if you are inhaling gunpowder, a thick smell that lodges itself in your throat and your nostrils, forcing you to think of volcanic eruptions, rocks colliding against each other, the tremendous force still rumbling and shaping the earth, here in Afar where tectonic plates smashed against each other millions of years ago. You remember the sheer force of the Earth.

The space is dotted with hydrothermal vents, mini geysers, and salt-crusted acidic pools. Dallol, as an extension of the volcanic activity in the Danakil range, is the most striking visual reminder of the geological activity taking place in this region. Three tectonic plates are grinding away and moving apart in this part of the Great African Rift. The volcanic activity under the earth forces water through the crust to create dynamic and colourful hypersaline and hyperacidic pools. It is the Earth's primal forces on display.

The way the surface of the earth bubbles and moves and breathes is almost creepy and makes your skin crawl. A trypophobic's worst nightmare.

The mineral deposits and oxidisation of the iron creates a rich palette of colour, ranging from venomous pale green to bright chartreuse and viridian, sickly yellows, oranges and ochres and reds and tinges of blue and purple.

The glass-like water looks beautiful, but is boiling hot, and some pools apparently contain heavily corrosive acid.

As the bland sun rises - I have never seen such a colourless sunrise, adding to the otherworldly quality of the place - the silhouettes of Afar people can be seen: men, wearing their traditional "sana-fil" sarongs, their aged Kalashnikovs balanced over the shoulder or the back; the women, in colourful sana-fils and headscarfs curiously examining this new wave of intruders in their land.

For some reason, a couple of them wanted to take a picture with me.

We climb up and down the various mounds to see the different pools and bubbling geysers; each mound gives us new colours and formations and textures. It's hard to believe that such a place actually exists.

Because of the constant geological activity, the pools and bubbles are always changing. It is no wonder that this place has attracted the interest of tourists and scientists alike.

And of one awestruck Mauritian.

It feels like a deranged artist picked up a brush and plastered the most lurid colours on their canvas.

ll too soon, it is time to go. Barely 8am and it's already unbearably hot. Danakil is the sort of place you would expect to see only in travel documentaries, so remote and alien that I never thought I would explore myself. I am still in awe that people actually live close by.