...I crossed the Rift Valley a number of times on the way from Addis Abeba to the village where I was teaching in eastern Ethiopia. The ride down the escarpment on an old Italian-built gravel road was dramatic as was the Afar-Issa area of bubbling mud pits, salt flats and the Awash River. To break up the journey, I stayed at a railroad stop in what used to be called Asebe Tefari, manned by an ancient Italian who chose not to leave at the end of WWII. He and his Ethiopian wife raised a handful of turkeys, two of which I bought one time...just to have them, I guess...This link shows the possibility of a new ocean forming in the Valley...
Africa is splitting into two to create a new ocean — Quartz Africa