Pictures: Ethiopia’s Extreme Salt Mines

Camel Delivery

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters  

In the town of Berahile, Ethiopia, workers unload slabs of salt harvested from deposits in the Afar depression. Since the Middle Ages, camels have been used to haul salt in Africa. These caravans of camels bring the salt across the desert to the market town where it is sold to traders and loaded on to trucks.

Published May 25, 2013

Salty Shipment

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

"Transportation was always the key to the salt business," writes Mark Kurlansky in Salt: A World History. The journey of the Afar salt continues in Berahile, Ethiopia. Slabs of salt—brought to the town on the backs of camels—are loaded on to trucks.

Published May 25, 2013

Worth His Salt

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

Stacks of salt bars surround a man in Mekele, Ethiopia. The town is an important part of the salt trade route in Ethiopia. Salt sold here is distributed around the country.

Published May 25, 2013

White Gold

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Reuters

A man readies a single block of salt, called an amole, for the market in Mekele, Ethiopia. As in many other parts of the world, salt was once used as a form of currency in Ethiopia.

Published May 25, 2013

Desert Trek

Photograph by Siegfried Modola, Rueters

This near-timeless view of camels trekking across the Afar salt route may one day be a thing of the past. Reuters reports that a new paved road is being built across the Afar region. Already, it has shortened the trip between the market towns of Behile and Mekele. The road will make access to salt mines easier, but it threatens to shake up traditional salt production. As Reuters reports, industrialized mining has already begun in some parts of Ethiopia.

Published May 25, 2013

See More Photos of Ethiopia

Photograph by Charles Meacham, My Shot

Published May 25, 2013