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Southern Ethiopia is a canvas ripped in two. Its landscape is being torn apart by the Great Rift Valley, leaving a trail of lakes where you can go see crocodiles, hippos and birds – or just drink in the scenery from your hotel.
Move east and the Bale Mountains offer rewarding treks across a plateau amid Afro-alpine plants and rare wildlife. It’s here you’ll encounter the world’s rarest canid, the Ethiopian wolf.
But it’s the tribes of the Lower Omo Valley, such as the lip-stretching Mursi and body-painting Karo, that often leave the deepest impression on visitors. To meet them 20 years ago was nearly unheard of. To travel here today is very easy, but still a privilege. And if you really want to get away from it all, you can cross the Omo River and explore the Omo National Park, which feels like the world's end.
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Southern Ethiopia.
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Divided by the lyrical ‘Bridge of God’ from Lake Chamo, beautiful Abaya is Ethiopia’s second-largest lake. Its peculiar reddish-brown waters are a result of elevated natural concentrations of suspended sediments, and it has a large population of crocodiles, which are said to be aggressive towards people and animals because the lake has few fish, their preferred food.
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Lake Chamo supports a very large population of crocodiles and, unlike neighbouring Lake Abaya, the waters are not rusty in colour.
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Walking between the masses of crocs in their concrete tanks at this government-run facility is more humdrum than it sounds, except during feeding, which usually happens Monday and Thursday between 3pm and 5pm. It’s signposted almost 6km from Sikela. There’s no public transport here. The crocodiles are either hatched from eggs collected in the lakes or pulled out as youngsters and reared on the farm. Most of the hapless crocs are killed when they're about 2m length (five years old), when their skin is the best quality, and will end up as handbags or belts in European stores – Italy and Greece, mostly.