"The surreal colors come from the sulphur, potash, and other minerals that saturate the Dallol hydrothermal field."

"It sits amid crusty salt plains in the Danakil Depression, a 3,800-square-mile bowl that dips more than 400 feet below sea level, thanks to three slowly separating tectonic plates. As those plates pull apart, hot springs bubble up into acidic pools that form ethereal crystals and pillars as the briny waters evaporate."

Photographs of Ethiopia (in Wired).

A Belgian conceptual artist is working with Ethiopian to create the perfect chicken.

"Incubated Worlds, a research and breeding center in the capital Addis Ababa, will also house a permanent art installation showcasing the work of Koen Vanmechelen, including photographs, videos, and books of chickens' genetic codes. 'It's the most sexy chicken coop in the world,' said Mr. Vanmechelen, whose Cosmopolitan Chicken Project set out to create a chicken carrying the genes of all the planet's breeds. The artist told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that each successive generation of Cosmopolitan Chickens is more resilient, lives longer, and is less susceptible to diseases, proving the importance of genetic diversity.... Olivier Hanotte, a scientist with ILRI in Addis Ababa...  praised Vanmechelen for doing what scientists could not – creating a unique population of chickens that gives a snapshot of the genetic diversity of birds outside Ethiopia... 'That is a fantastic resource for us... There's no way that as a scientist I would have gotten a grant for 20 years to do this sort of experiment."

Reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Within the "sheer cliffs, surreal rock formations and vertical spires [of] northern Ethiopia’s Gheralta Mountains... rock-hewn Ethiopian Orthodox cave churches..."

"... some of which are more than 1,000 years old."

High and hidden, the Gheralta churches’ positions served two purposes: to bring devotees closer to heaven and to be out of sight to raiding armies passing through the valleys below. So in order to experience these churches, visitors must hike slot canyons, free climb sheer sandstone walls and skirt cliff edges – a cultural foray that is not for the faint of heart....

Click through all the photos. 

"Although Medieval Ethiopia was very isolated from the other Christian Nations..."

"... they did maintain a degree of contact through Jerusalem."

Like many other nations and denominations, the Ethiopian Church maintained a series of small chapels and even an annex at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Saladin, after retaking the Holy City in 1187, expressly invited the Ethiopian monks to return and even exempted Ethiopian pilgrims from the pilgrim tax. His two edicts provide evidence of Ethiopia's contact with these Crusader States during this period. It was during this period that the great Ethiopian king Gebre Mesqel Lalibela ordered the construction of the legendary rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.

Ethiopia is today's "History of" country.

I'm going to make a list of the 10 most beautiful names of countries in the world today. Ethiopia is the list.