If you are a lover of travels of discovery and adventure, if you are looking for contact with a completely different culture and magnificent landscapes, this journey is made for you! We offer you an unforgettable journey in the south of the country during which you will discover the arid lowlands and rift valley lakes, meet Konso farmers and their fortified villages, Hamer and Karos (sedentary) breeders; you will camp on the banks of the Omo and meet the Mursi between Omo and the Mago park.

Travel idea to customize

This travel idea is fully customizable

This itinerary was imagined by our local agent with only one idea in mind: to inspire you. Each element can be adapted to your needs and interests, from the duration to the type of accommodation and activities.

Day 1: Reception at the airport and accommodation

Arrival in Addis Ababa, where you will be greeted by our collaborator, assistance with customs procedures and transfer to the hotel.
We will make ourselves on the Entoto, a hill located in the northern part of the city 3200 m high, to understand the urban structure of the capital. We will continue with a visit to the National Museum where we will be able to admire, among other things, the famous Lucy (humanoid fossil dating back 3.4 million years).
We will also visit the ancient palace of Haile Sellasie, now the National Entomological Museum.

Day 2: Departure for the South

The South of Ethiopia is rich in great ethnic and linguistic diversity: the peoples who inhabit it constitute a true and proper ethnological mosaic. Some ethnic groups consist of only a hundred individuals but retain their language, traditions, customs to which they are fiercely attached.
In the morning we will walk to Langano, in the heart of the Rift Valley, at 1570 meters high. Langano is the favourite holiday destination for the inhabitants of the capital who love to find themselves here to enjoy the wonderful lake and the Abyata and Shalla national park, which preserve an impressive colony of pink swans and other rare species of birds.

Day 3: Departure for Arbaminch

In the morning continue to the town of Arbaminch (in Amharic “the forty springs”). Along the way, we will stop in the small town of Alaba to visit their villages.

Day 4: Discovering the Dorze ethnic group

In the morning we will set off to discover the surrounding mountains, to arrive in the village of the Dorze ethnic group. The visit to the village will be the occasion to evoke the importance of this ethnic group of the Ensat, also known as “false banana”. This plant is exploited in all its parts from the root to the leaves. It is the central element to the survival of the Dorze. Ethiopia is the only place where an edible product is extracted.
In the afternoon we will be able to enjoy the small town of Arbaminch and its immense lakes. Arbaminch is a quiet and very pleasant town, built on the side of a hill. It consists of two levels and offers an extraordinary view of the two lakes, Abaya and Chamo. We can also observe the local fauna consisting of gazelles, dik-dik, zebras, monkeys and some species of birds. In the afternoon we will go on an excursion by boat on Lake Chamo and we will have the opportunity to “walk” among crocodiles and hippos that coexist peacefully with pelicans and white eagles.

Day 5: Meeting with the Banna and Ari ethnic group

Today we will discover the Banna and Ari, ethnic group. From the same linguistic and cultural family as the Hamers, their social structure is identical.
Transfer to Magician Park and camping accommodation.

Day 6: The Mursi

It is in the low lands of the Mago Park located in the eastern part of the Omo and in the west of the Mago Riviera that the Mursi’s are located. The torrid climate and the warlike practices characteristic of this population have preserved them for a long time from any kind of contact with modernity. The Mursi are agro-shepherds. As for the Hamer and the Banna, their social organization and rituals follow in a combined manner the principles of generations, of age and of dwelling. Women of higher rank adorned the inferior lip with “plates”, whose origin and meaning have not yet been fully clarified.

Day 7: The Hamers of the Omo Valley

This day will be entirely dedicated to visiting the Karo Hamers. The Hamers live in the savannahs west of Lake Chew Bahir, the salt lake. Their wealth is the cows that lead, in slow and insecure journeys, to the banks of the Omo. We will visit these people and discover their uses and customs: women’s hairstyles, married women, with their heavy leather and metal necklaces and unbleached ones, recognizable by the metal disk stuck in their hair, the initiation rite called ” bull jump “…

Day 8: The Hamers of the Omo Valley

Departure to the village of Omorate in the Dessanech area. Along a road decorated with acacias, we will arrive in a grassy savannah where the Dassanechs are located, installed on the two banks of the river, in an area made fertile by the floods of the Omo Delta and the flow of Lake Turkana. Mixed in small groups linked by the language, today very common and of Cushitic origin, their activity is mainly agricultural. Livestock and its use show the moral value of this community based primarily on pastoralism.

Day 9: Discovery of the Kono ethnic group

We continue our journey in the Omo Valley to discover the Kosno ethnic group; visit to his village. If the king is present, we will be able to know him, he will explain to us the peculiarities of his people, the advice of the wise and his relationship with the wise elders. The Konso region is characterized by terraced cultivation, mainly of millet. Each people is structured in quarters that constitute mutual aid groups and in which they are appointed councillors of the people. The Konso are divided into 9 clans, each of which has a totem.

Day 10: People of the Borana ethnic group

Near Yabelo, we will visit a people of the Borana ethnic group and we will discover the salt lake at the bottom of a crater where the villagers extract, for incredible efforts, the blocks of salt that constitute a considerable wealth for them. For 500 years, the Borena, semi-nomadic shepherds of Ethiopia have managed to survive and resist the difficult environmental context, sourcing water in wells up to 30 meters deep. Men, standing one on top of the other, form a human chain inside the well, they pass buckets full of water balanced on this precarious scale, so the water is collected. There is a chorus of loud voices that keeps pace. Yellow buckets are continually lowered into the well and are filled to the surface with a fascinating rhythm.

Day 11: The Sidamo region

After Yabelo, we will visit the Sidamo region, up to Yergalem, a small village surrounded by greenery, surrounded by coffee plantations. This region is one of the main coffee production areas and it will be an opportunity to discuss the ethical origin of this plant. All the Arabian coffee plants in the world have an Ethiopian origin.