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THE FIRST QUESTION was how we were going to get there. For a settlement that was supposed to be built as a “tourist destination” it sure knew how to make sure no one ever visited the place.
The only sign of civilisation in the area was the mining town that had seen bursts of activity followed by long periods of abandonment. There had once been a train line, but it hadn’t been used for well over a hundred years. A road project that linked the mining developments up with the main road from Djibouti to the Ethiopian highlands had been abandoned before it had been completed.
There was a goat track of a road to the research station but it probably hadn’t been maintained since the researchers left and was so badly eroded and covered in sand that it would need desert trucks with large wheel
