Omo Valley vacation, Ethiopia

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION

For guests who want to cut their carbon, we offer a fully overland version that removes both internal flights. Our 4WD travels from Addis Ababa either way, so traveling in it rather than flying avoids the extra emissions of the flights. This extends the trip to 10 days or more, with extra overnight stops along the way.

On the ground, we travel in shared 4WDs (maximum four guests per vehicle) and spend much of the trip on foot. There's a village walk in Dorze, a four-hour hike into the Uri Mountains, ranger-led hikes on both days in Omo National Park, and an optional 2–3 hour hike up Senegal mountain. Four of the seven nights are spent camping, and all lodges are small.

We avoid single-use plastic bottles. We carry large flagons of drinking water in the vehicles and bring a water filtration system that safely filters water from open sources, so we can refill in remote areas. We recommend guests bring reusable steel water bottles.

Food is local throughout: a local fish restaurant in Arba Minch, enset and honey in Dorze, an Ethiopian lunch in Hana, and meals prepared by our cook team, who buy supplies locally in Turmi. Vegetarian and vegan food is easy every day. Ethiopian fasting food is fully vegan, and our cook team caters for it at camp.

ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE

Omo National Park is one of Ethiopia's largest and least developed parks, covering around 4,300 km² of grassland, bush and riverine forest. It is a recognised Key Biodiversity Area, with over 300 bird species and more than 70 mammal species recorded. From our own experience of traveling here, we estimate the park sees fewer than 200 foreign visitors a year, so it earns very little from tourism. It faces pressure from hunting, agricultural encroachment and the large sugar developments that guests see on the way out. Our visits bring much needed direct income through park entry fees and ranger fees, and every walk is led by a park scouts. Showing that visitors will come for the park's wildlife and wilderness strengthens the case for protecting it and increases the moral of a park staff that very much feel at the margins of Ethiopia. For the park to have a sustainable future, it needs more visitors, and this trip is designed to bring them.

The invasive Prosopis juliflora (known locally as Woyane) is spreading across the lower Omo, crowding roadsides and grazing land. Our guides explain its impact as we drive through.

The Konso terraces, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape, are a 400-year-old example of farming that conserves soil and water in a dry environment. In Jinka, guests visit our guide's eco plot, which is run on organic permaculture principles and grows a wide variety of fruits and crops

People

LOCAL ECONOMY
All accommodation is small-scale and Ethiopian-owned. In Dorze we stay at Dorze Lodge, founded by Tsehai Bogale, who grew up in the region and became part of the Dorze community as a young man. The lodge was set up to help the local community and is run on community-based tourism principles. Over 90% of its staff are local Dorze people, trained on the job, and it works with NGOs including Dires and Foundation Children for Africa to improve local living standards. In Konso we stay at Kanta Lodge, owned by a Swiss-Ethiopian, and in Jinka at the Nasser Hotel, which is locally owned.

In Dorze, the lodge has agreements with the villagers for the homestead visits and the evening of polyphonic singing, and we pay a fee directly to the village. House visits rotate around the village so the benefit is spread across the community, and any household can opt out.

We use local guides in Dorze and Konso, and a main guide in the Omo who has known the Hamer families at Kosera for many years. Our cook team from Jinka, joins us from Weyto and buys local supplies in Turmi. At Kosera we pay the village in kind, with coffee husks (used to make the local Hamer coffee) and salt. The village elders share these out among the households. This keeps the benefit with the whole community and avoids the jealousies that cash payments can cause. We don't encourage photo shoots, and we don't believe it's acceptable to point cameras at people as if they were objects. Guests come to spend time with families, not to photograph them. We eat at a local fish restaurant in Arba Minch and an Ethiopian restaurant in Hana.

EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY

Almost everyone working on this trip comes from the area it visits. Our local guides in each place are from that village, or at least from the same people. Our main guide in the Omo, who has built a long-standing relationship with the families at Kosera, is from Jinka, the main town of the Omo Valley, as are our cook and camp staff. Only our driver is from Addis Ababa. At Dorze Lodge, over 90% of staff are from the local Dorze community, and a local man has risen to site manager. In Omo National Park, walks are led by park scouts.