Much more is known about the historic highland city of Axum, once a great commercial civilization, trading via the Red Sea port of Adulis & founded perhaps 500 years after the decline of Yeha. Axum stands in the highlands of north western Tigray, commanding spectacular views over the nearby Adwa hills. This ancient settlement is frequently referred to as ''the sacred city of the Ethiopians''-a description that adequately sums up its significance in national culture as a centre of Orthodox Christianity. Many remarkable monuments here attest to the great antiquity of religious expression in this country, and as a former capital that has never lost its special appeal to the hearts & minds of all Ethiopians.
Axum is renowned for its cathedral of st. Mary of Zion, where, legend has it, the original Ark of the Covenant is housed. Axum is also famous for its seven mysterious monolithic stelae, hewn from single pieces of solid granite. The most notable are carved to resemble multi-storey houses; several weigh more than 500 tones & stand 20 meters high. They seem less like prayers of stone and more like lightning-rods to heaven. Just out of town are the remains of an early Axumite palace, which is popularly thought to have belonged to the Queen of Sheba. Axum's greatest significance ,however, is as the epicenter of the Queen of Sheba dynasty, upon which rests the notion for the sacred kinship of the Semitic peoples of Ethiopia- a notion that links the recent past to ancient times. The former Emperor Haile Selassie claimed to be the 225th monarch of the Solomonic line. His death in 1975 marked the end of an era- and the beginning of an entire way of life.
Though Axum can be visited through out the year, it's more impressive during church festivals; Ethiopian Christmas ( January 7) , Epiphany, ( January 19) and the festival of Maryam Zion, celebrated at the end of November.
Hundreds of miles to the south and east of Axum is another ancient settlement, Lalibela, it is also famous for its architecture. Lalibel is a city carved from legend - a medieval settlement in the Lasta area of Wollo that is the site of eleven remarkable rock-hewn monolithic churches, believed to have been built by king Lalibela in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. These notable structures are curved inside and outside of the solid rock, and are consider among the wonders of the world. Each building is architecturally unique, and several of them are decorated with fascinating rock paintings. The unadulterated biblical atmosphere and vivid local color of the Timiket celebrations provide an ideal opportunity to see Lalibela as sacred centre whose roots go back to man's very earliest years.
The most impressive Churches of Lalibela, which are carved out of soft red volcanic tuff on which they stand. The mysterioius churches where some lie completely hidden in deep trenches and the others standing in quarried caves are complex in architecture and concept.
Lalibela can be visited at any time of the year but it’s highly colorful during the religious festivals; Ethiopian Christmas celebrated on the 7th January and Timket Celebrated on the 19th of January.
The next stop on the historic route is the graceful city of Gonder, founded by Emperor Fasiledas in 1653. The city was Ethiopia's capital until the reign of the would-be Reforming Emperor Tewodros II, also known as Theodore. During its long years as a capital, the settlement emerged as one of the largest and most populous cites in the realm. It was a great commercial centre, trading with the rich lands south of the Blue Nile, as well as with Sudan to the west, and the Red Sea port of Massawa to the north-east.
Gondar is famous for its many medieval castles and the design and decoration of its churches. The earliest of the castles was created by Fasiladas himself, where from the top, one can see the breath taking view of the city. Besides the famous palaces, one should visit the so called "Bathing Palace of Emperor Fasiladas", which is still used for the annual Timket or Epiphany celebrations and the abbey of the redoubtable eighteen century Empress Mentewab at Quesquam, in the mountains just outside Gondar.
Mention must also be made of the beautiful church of Debre Berhan Sellassie, with its remarkable ceiling decorated with winged angles - paintings that, despite the passing of centuries, seem to burst with vitality &color. Flanked by twin mountain streams, Gondar commands spectacular views over farmlands to the gleaming waters of Lake Tana 35 kilometers to the south. The city retains an atmosphere of antique charm mingled with an aura of enduring mystery. Gondar can be visited at any time of the year but would be exceptionally interesting during church festivals, Ghenna or Ethiopian Christmas on January7 and Timkat or Epiphany on January 19.
The thirty seven islands of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's Largest Lake, Shelter twenty monasteries surviving remanants of an old, contamplative tradition. The power of Blue Nile may best be appreciated at the Blue Nile Falls, the most dramatic spectacle on either the White or Blue Niles, a vision of natural strength and grandeur.
For the modern traveller, the starting point of any visit to the blue Nile Falls, or to the islands of Lake Tana, is the bustling market town of Bahar Dar on the Lake's south-eastern shore. The colorful markets and a variety of handicrafts and weaving centres make it a comfortable base for excursion either by land
or water.
Bahirdar port provides access by boat to a number of historic lakeside churches and monasteries, near and far. Most date from the seventeenth century and have beautifully painted walls. Many such places of worship now have fascinating museums, at which the visitor can see priceless illustrated manuscripts, historic crowns and fine royal and ecclesiastical
robes. Some monastic islands are forbidden to women, but others can be visited by both sex.
No journey along Ethiopia's fabled historic route would be complete without a visit to the medieval walled city of Harar,
which stands amid green mountains on the east wall of the Great Rift Valley. Harar's heritage is almost entirely Muslim and Oriental. Harar has probably always had a great more in common with the Horn's coastal culture than with the life of highlands - and it retains to this day a certain redolence of the Orient.
With its 90 mosques and shrines, Harar is considered to be the fourth most sacred centre of the Islamic world. Its Islamic character is best expressed in the Grand Mosque(Al Jami), which dominates the town.
Rightly renowned for its intricately worked filigree jewelers of silver, gold and amber, Harar's Megalo Gudo market is also a centre for beautiful baskets of woven grass, decorative wall-mats and bright shawls, as well as all the fruit, vegetables, spices and grains of the province. Harar's five gates - the only means to enter or leave the city centre - have been strongly guarded over the years. Besides all these, Harar is also known for the hyena man who feeds the wild hyena with hand and mouth. Harar can be visited at any time of the year.
The great valley is the single largest geographical feature on the African continent, and was the only such feature visible to the first astronauts to reach the moon. The process of rifting started some 20 million years ago along a 4,00km-long fault line that stretches from the Red Sea south to Mozambique’s Zambezi Valley. The gradual expansion of the valley has been accompanied by a large amount of volcanic activity the floor is s \studded with dormant and extinct volcanoes such as Fantelle in Ethiopia and Longmont in Kenya. Africa’s two highest peaks, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, are also volcanic products of the rifting process, even though they lie outside of the Rift Valley. Millions of years from now, the Rift Valley will fill with ocean water, to split what is now Africa into two discrete landmasses, much as happened millions of years ago when Madagascar was separated from the African mainland.
The Ethiopian portion of the Rift Valley runs from the Red Sea to Lake Turkana on the Kenyan border. In northern Ethiopia, it forms the Danakil Depression, an inaccessible and inhospitable desert that dips to an altitude of 116m below sea level, one of the lowest points on the earth’s surface. South of the Danakil Depression, due east of Addis Ababa, the Rift narrows around Awash National park to bisect the Ethiopian Highlands into the northwestern and southeastern massifs. In Ethiopia, as elsewhere along its length, the Rift Valley has formed and important barrier to animal movement and plant dispersal. For this reason, several animals are restricted to one or other side of the Rift, while populations of many animals are restricted to one or other side of the Rift, while populations of many animals that occur on both sides of the Great Rift, for instance Ethiopian Wolves, form genetically distinct races.
The southern part of the Ethiopia Rift Valley is lower, warmer and drier than other densely populated parts of the country. Covered in acacia woodland and studded with lakes, it is also one of the few parts of Ethiopia that feels unequivocally African in many respects the region is reminiscent of the Rift Valley Lakes region of central Kenya. The six main lakes of the Ethiopian Rift formed during the last ice age, originally as two large lakes, one of which embraced what are now Lakes Ziway, Abiata, Shala and Langano, the other lakes Abaya and Chamo.
South of Lake Chamo, the Rift valley expands into the hot, barren scrublands of the Kenyan border region. The Rift here becomes less clearly defined, but it supports two further lakes, Chew Bahir and Turkana, both of which are practically inaccessible from the Ethiopian side (the vast bulk of Turkana’s surface are lies in Kenya). The Kenyan border area is most notable for two of Ethiopia’s most important national parks, Omo and Mago, which are among the most undeveloped game reserves in Africa, and noted not so much for their abundance of game (though most major plains animals are present) but for their wilderness atmosphere.
Although the Rift Valley is every where lower and hotter than the highlands, most of the lake region between Ziway and Arba Minch lies at an elevation of between 1,000m and 1,500m and temperatures are rarely uncomfortably hot. Rainfall figures are lower than in the highlands, but the patter is broadly similar, with one long rainy season generally starting in April and finishing in July or august.
Bale National Park is rightly regarded to be the best place to see a good rang of those brides that are endemic to Ethiopia and Eritrea. At least 16 such endemics have been recorded in the park, including the Bale parisoma, which is unique to Bale, and a casual visitor could hope to spot most of them over the courts of a few hours each at Dinsho and on the Sanetti Plateau. In addition to its endemics, Bale is a good site to pick up several localized highland birds and migrant waterfowl and raptors, and the park supports isolated breeding populations of several other noteworthy species.
Even before arriving at Dinsho, it is worth stopping a few times as you pass through the Gaysay extension of the park, a reliable site for the endemic Rouget’s rail and Abyssinian longclaw, as well as several other water and grassland birds. Dinsho itself is an excellent spot for endemics black winged lovebird, white backed black tit, Abyssinian catbird, Abyssinian salty flycatcher, thick billed raven and white collared pigeon while other forest birds include white cheeked turaco, Abyssinian ground thrush, olive thrush and Cape eagle owl.
The most alluring bird watching spot is of course the Sanetti Plateau. The ascent there form Bale is not without interest. Forest patches along this road hold similar species to Dinsho, notably the nondescript but endemic Bale parisoma. Ascending above the forest zone, the alpine chat and endemic back headed siskin are abundant, and moorland and chestnut francolin often dart across the road. A few pairs of very confiding Rouget’s rail are resident along the artificial drainage stream that runs to the left of the road for about 1km.
At one or other of the tarns on the Sanetti Plateau, you can be confident of sighting the endemic blue winged goose, watt led ibis and spot throated plover, as well as a representative of sub Saharan Africa’s only breeding population of ruddy shelduck and, in season a number of migrant waterfowl. An isolated population of he localized wattles crane is present seasonally, and usually easy to observe when it is around. The variety of smaller birds is somewhat limited. Red throated pipit, Thekla lark, Abyssinian longclaw and (seasonally) yellow wagtail are the common ground birds, while the lovely tacazze sunbird is often seen feeding on flowering aloes.
The commonest raptor is the auger buzzard, sometimes seen in its localized melanistic phase. Kestrels and buzzards are quite common too the rare saker flacon has been recorded three times on the plateau, though be aware that the more common lanner falcon here often has an unusually pale crown. Sanetti is a great place for large eagles. The tawny eagle is the most common of these, supplemented by the European imperial and steppe eagle. In 1993, it was discover that bale hosts sub Saharan Africa’s only recorded breeding population of golden eagle. The plateau also supports the most southerly breeding population of the crow like chough.
The Harenna forest, though less well known scientifically, supports a greater variety of forest birds, with new records likely as more birders explore the area. Endemics include white backed black tit, Abyssinian catbird, Abyssinian woodpecker, Ethiopian oriole, yellow fronted parrot and the taxonomically uncertain brown sawing swallow. Other specials include the African cuckoo hawk, and brown backed honey guide.
Although less celebrated than the colorful ethnic groups of South Omo, Konso must rank as among the most singular of African nations. Now governed as a Special Woreda within the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ region, the people of Konso had little contact with the rest of Ethiopia until recent times, and the area remains staunchly traditionalist in character.
The Konso inhabit an isolated region of basalt hills – essentially an extension of the southern highlands – lying at an altitude range of roughly 1,500m to 2,000m, and flanked to the east by the semi-desert Borena lowlands and to the west by the equally harsh Lower Omo Valley. Oddly, the Konso have no strong tradition relating to their origins, other than that they came to their present homeland from somewhere further east 500-1,000 years ago. they speak an east Cushitic language and have few apparent cultural links with the people of the surrounding lowlands or the Ethiopian Highlands.
Mixed agriculturists the Konso make the most of the hard surviving slops that characterizes their relatively dry and infertile homeland through a combination of extensive rock terracing, the use of animal dung as fertilizer, crop rotation and hard work. The most important crop in the region is sorghum, which is harvested twice annually after the short rains in June and July and after the long rains in February and March. Sorghum is used to make a thick local beer, while the finely ground flours forms the base of the Konso staple dish of korkorfa or dama, a sort of dough ball that is cooked like a dumpling in a stew or soup. Other important crops including maize, beans and coffee, oddly, the Konso shun coffee beans in favor on the leaves, which are sun-dried, ground to a fine powder, and mixed with sunflower seeds and various spices to form an easily stored local equivalent to instant coffee!
The most outwardly distinctive feature of Konso country is the aesthetically pleasing town and villages, which in some respects bear an unexpected (though purely coincidental) resemblance to the Dogon villages of Mali. Unusually for this part of Africa, the Konso traditionally live in congested centralized settlements, typically situated on the top of hill and enclosed by stone walls measuring up to 2m high. These walled hilltop settlements usually have no more than three or four entrance gates, and can be reached only via a limited number of steep footpaths. This made the villages easily defensible, an important consideration for an isolated people whose territory was, in the past, under constant threat of cattle raids and military attacks from the flanking lowlands.
With in the defensive town walls, low stick and stone walls and leafy Moringa stenopetelai (shiferaw) trees enclose every individual compound, to crate a labyrinth of narrow, shady alleys. Each family compound typ9ically consists of between three and five circular thatched stone huts, as well as an elevated granary or kosa used to store sorghum and maze, and a taller but smaller platform where freshly cooked food is stowed away too high for children to reach it. The compounds are entered via gateways, which are supported and covered by thick wooden struts, a defensive design that forces any aspirant attackers to crawl into the compound one by one.
Every village consists of a number of sub communities, each of which is centered upon a Mora or communal house. This is tall building with an open sided ground floor supported by juniper trunks, and a sharply angled thatched roof covering a wooden ceiling. The ground floor serves as a shady place where villagers’ men, boys and girls, but not grown women can relax, gossip, play and make important communal decisions. Customarily, all boys from the age of 12 upwards are required to sleep in the ceiling of the Mora until they get married and even married men are expected to spend part of the night there. This custom, though still enforced, derives from more beleaguered days, when the elder boys and men often needed to be mobilized quickly when a village was attacked. The Mora also serves as a guesthouse for male visitors from the other villages. Girls and women are not generally allowed to sleep in the Mora, through these days some villages will make an exception for faranji tourists!.
Konso society is structured around the kata generation set, a system not dissimilar to the Gada of the neighboring Borena people, or that practiced by the Maasai and Samburu of east Africa. Although the exact cycle differs from one village to the next, any given village will initiate a new generation – consisting of boys of between eight and 25 years old-every 18 years. Traditionally, young men who had not yet been initiated into a generation were usually permitted to marry, but any offspring that their wives produced would be killed at birth-a custom that is no longer practiced. Should you happen to be in Konso country during December, January or September, this is when kata induction ceremonies take place, so it's worth asking about them locally. The highlight of the ceremony is the erection of an Olahita (generation pole) in the village's ceremonial square- it is easy to tell roughly how old any given village is by counting the number of poles and multiplying the total by 18!
The erection of poles and stones form an important part of Konso ritual. In any village square, you'll see a number of so-called Victory Stones standing to mark important events generally victories over attempted raiders or conquerors-in the village's history. More famous are the Konso Waga, carved wooden grave markers that are often (and rather misleadingly) referred to as totems. Traditionally, a Waga will be erected above the grave of any important Konso man or warrior, surrounded by smaller statues of his Wives and defeated foes. The somber facial features of the dead warrior are carved onto the Waga, complete with enlarged and bucked teeth made from animal bones-creating a rather leery impression that is only reinforced by the impressively proportioned penis the deceased typically has clasped in his hand! Intriguingly, these grave markers and victory stones have an obvious precursor in the stelae that mark medieval graves around modern-day Dilla, and oral tradition indicates that the proto-Konso migrated from about the right place at about the right time for there to be some link between these customs.
Although the Konso are animists by custom, the last 50 years have seen many youngsters convert to protestant denominations. Traditional attire is gradually giving way to the ubiquitous trousers or skirt and T-shirt-one could actually be forgiven for thinking that the traditional Konso costume consists of blue T-shirts with an angled white stripe, a huge consignment of which must have been imported from China a few years back! On a more serious note, the practice of erecting engraved grave markers has largely disappeared in recent decades, and many of the finest remaining examples were recently collected by the regional tourist office before they could be damaged or sold to foreign collectors. In most other senses, however, modern Konso society remains strikingly informed by, and in touch with, a unique and ancient cultural heritage. The area is well worth exploring.
The Hamer, who number about 35,000 and occupy a large territory that stretches east from the Omo River to Lake Chew Bahir, stand out as perhaps the archetypal people of South Omo. Not only do they speak one of the Omotic tongues unique to this small area of southern Ethiopia, but they also display an elaborate and eclectic selection of body decorations that embraces the full gamut of Omo specialties, with the notable exception of lip plates.
The women are particularly striking, adorned with thick plaits of ochre-colored hair hanging down in a heavy fringe, leather skirts decorated with cowries, a dozen or more copper bracelets fixed tightly around their arms, thick welts on their body created by cutting themselves and treating the wound with ash and charcoal, and colorful beaded bands hanging from around their waists. Married women wear one or more thick copper necklaces, often with a circular wedge perhaps 10cm long projecting out of the front.
The men, though also given to body scarring, are more plainly adorned except when they paint themselves with white chalk paste before a dance or ceremony. The clay hair buns fashioned on some men's heads indicate that they have killed a person or a dangerous animal within the last year.
In common with most other people of South Omo, the Hamer are pastoralists by custom, and take great pride in the size of their cattle herd, though in reality agriculture now plays a far greater role in their subsistence. They are closely allied to the Bena people, whose territory lies to the north of theirs, and who speak a similar language and freely intermarry with the Hamer. The well-documented cultural links between Ancient Egypt and highland Ethiopia may also extend to the Hamer and other people of South Omo. Professor Ivo Strecker, who has studied Hamer culture for three decades, and lived among them for long periods, notes that the environment and agro-pastoralist lifestyle of the Hamer is close to that of the early period of Egyptian civilization. Furthermore, he has documented striking similarities between current day utensils and decorations of the Hamer and identical items depicted on early Egyptian paintings, notably the woko, a type of hooked forked herding stick, and the headrests used by Hamer men.
Although most visitors to South Omo visit a Hamer market, it is also very rewarding to visit one of the smaller villages that lie outside the Hamer towns of Turmi and Dimeka. Incredibly neat, and constructed entirely from mud, wood and thatch, one of the most striking aspects of these small villages-which typically consist of a few extended families across perhaps 10-15 huts – is the total absence of non-organic or Western artifacts. It might seem banal when put into words, but it is nevertheless rather sobering to encounter such simplicity and evident lack of material want, and to contrast it against our own restless need for distraction and accumulation of useless paraphernalia.
The most important event in Hamer society is the Bull Jumping Ceremony, the culmination of a three-day long initiation rite that is normally held before the long rains, between late February and early April. On the afternoon of the third day, up to 30 bulls are lined up in a row. The initiate, stark naked and sporting a demented unkempt Afro hairstyle, has to leap on to the back of the first bull, then from one bull to the next, until he reaches the end of the row. He must then turn around and repeat the performance in the opposite direction, then a third and fourth time, before he has proved his worth to everybody's satisfaction. This rite of passage out of the way, the initiates then embark on a frenzied spree of institutionalized violence, repeatedly beating the backs of all their female relatives with sticks until the screaming women are left battered, bleeding and scarred for life.
The most celebrated residents of South Omo are undoubtedly the Mursi, a distinctive group of pastoralists who number about 5,000, and whose territory is more or less bounded by the Omo River to the west and the Mago River to the east. The subject of several television documentaries, as well as Leslie Wood head’s book A Box Full of Spirits (Heinemann), the Mursi are best known for one admittedly very quirky item of decoration: the famous lip plates.
The custom is that when a Mursi woman reaches the age of about 20, a slit is cut between her lower lip and mouth. Over the next year, the gap is progressively stretched until it is large enough for a small circular clay plate, indented like a pulley, to be inserted between the lip and the mouth. As the lip stretches, so the plate is replaced with a larger one, a process that is repeated until eventually the gap is large enough to hold a clay plate of perhaps 15cm in diameter, and the woman can ideally pull her distended lip over her head. The larger the lip plate a woman can wear, the greater her value when she is married – a real whopper might fetch a price of 50 head of cattle.
An alternative and probably false explanation-that the idea is to make a married woman as unattractive as possible to potential adulterers and slave raiders-does take on a grim ring of truth when you actually visit a Mursi village. Contrary to what the publicity shots might have you believe, Mursi women don't actually wear their lip plate all that much – it's far too heavy and uncomfortable. Instead, the wretched ladies wander about in what appears to be a monumental sulk, with their distended lip hanging limply below the jaws. Call me a culture-bound git, but a Mursi woman son’s lip plate is not, by any standards, a pretty sight-one can't help but feel for the teenage girls who will soon be mutilated in a similar fashion!
Mind you, the path to matrimony is no smoother for Mursi men. Traditionally, no Mursi man can marry unless he has won a Donga, a stick fight in which two contestants painted in white chalk paste pummel each other violently with heavy 2m-long poles. In past times, fights to the death were commonplace, but these days it is more normal for one fighter to submit before things go that far. The victorious fighter is carried off by a group of eligible girls, who then decide which one of them will marry him.
Ever since the bridge over the Mago River was washed away a few years back, the only accessible Mursi villages have been situated on the east side of the river within Mago National park. The easiest village to visit, some two hours' drive from the park headquarters, is Bella, which can be reached by following the Jinka road north for 8km, then turning left onto a track that leads to a ranger outpost some 15km further, then continuing straight ahead for another 17km, ignoring the track for Maki to your right, and climbing the escarpment as you approach the village itself.
Bella is situated just outside the northwestern park boundary, on a beautiful plateau that is encircled by mountains and lies near the source of the Usno River. A fee of birr 30 per vehicle must be paid to the elders, and a further fee must be paid to any person who you photograph. The starting rate is birr 2 per picture, and they count every click of the shutter. Lip plates can be bought from the girls and women, should you fancy a souvenir. Further relevant details are included under the heading Mago National park above.
Much more is known about the historic highland city of Axum, once a great commercial civilization, trading via the Red Sea port of Adulis & founded perhaps 500 years after the decline of Yeha. Axum stands in the highlands of north western Tigray, commanding spectacular views over the nearby Adwa hills. This ancient settlement is frequently referred to as ''the sacred city of the Ethiopians''-a description that adequately sums up its significance in national culture as a centre of Orthodox Christianity. Many remarkable monuments here attest to the great antiquity of religious expression in this country, and as a former capital that has never lost its special appeal to the hearts & minds of all Ethiopians.
Hundreds of miles to the south and east of Axum is another ancient settlement, Lalibela, it is also famous for its architecture. Lalibel is a city carved from legend - a medieval settlement in the Lasta area of Wollo that is the site of eleven remarkable rock-hewn monolithic churches, believed to have been built by king Lalibela in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. These notable structures are curved inside and outside of the solid rock, and are consider among the wonders of the world. Each building is architecturally unique, and several of them are decorated with fascinating rock paintings. The unadulterated biblical atmosphere and vivid local color of the Timiket celebrations provide an ideal opportunity to see Lalibela as sacred centre whose roots go back to man's very earliest years.
The next stop on the historic route is the graceful city of Gonder, founded by Emperor Fasiledas in 1653. The city was Ethiopia's capital until the reign of the would-be Reforming Emperor Tewodros II, also known as Theodore. During its long years as a capital, the settlement emerged as one of the largest and most populous cites in the realm. It was a great commercial centre, trading with the rich lands south of the Blue Nile, as well as with Sudan to the west, and the Red Sea port of Massawa to the north-east. 
The thirty seven islands of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's Largest Lake, Shelter twenty monasteries surviving remanants of an old, contamplative tradition. The power of Blue Nile may best be appreciated at the Blue Nile Falls, the most dramatic spectacle on either the White or Blue Niles, a vision of natural strength and grandeur.
No journey along Ethiopia's fabled historic route would be complete without a visit to the medieval walled city of Harar,
which stands amid green mountains on the east wall of the Great Rift Valley. Harar's heritage is almost entirely Muslim and Oriental. Harar has probably always had a great more in common with the Horn's coastal culture than with the life of highlands - and it retains to this day a certain redolence of the Orient.
The great valley is the single largest geographical feature on the African continent, and was the only such feature visible to the first astronauts to reach the moon. The process of rifting started some 20 million years ago along a 4,00km-long fault line that stretches from the Red Sea south to Mozambique’s Zambezi Valley. The gradual expansion of the valley has been accompanied by a large amount of volcanic activity the floor is s \studded with dormant and extinct volcanoes such as Fantelle in Ethiopia and Longmont in Kenya. Africa’s two highest peaks, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, are also volcanic products of the rifting process, even though they lie outside of the Rift Valley. Millions of years from now, the Rift Valley will fill with ocean water, to split what is now Africa into two discrete landmasses, much as happened millions of years ago when Madagascar was separated from the African mainland.
The southern part of the Ethiopia Rift Valley is lower, warmer and drier than other densely populated parts of the country. Covered in acacia woodland and studded with lakes, it is also one of the few parts of Ethiopia that feels unequivocally African in many respects the region is reminiscent of the Rift Valley Lakes region of central Kenya. The six main lakes of the Ethiopian Rift formed during the last ice age, originally as two large lakes, one of which embraced what are now Lakes Ziway, Abiata, Shala and Langano, the other lakes Abaya and Chamo.
Bale National Park is rightly regarded to be the best place to see a good rang of those brides that are endemic to Ethiopia and Eritrea. At least 16 such endemics have been recorded in the park, including the Bale parisoma, which is unique to Bale, and a casual visitor could hope to spot most of them over the courts of a few hours each at Dinsho and on the Sanetti Plateau. In addition to its endemics, Bale is a good site to pick up several localized highland birds and migrant waterfowl and raptors, and the park supports isolated breeding populations of several other noteworthy species.
At one or other of the tarns on the Sanetti Plateau, you can be confident of sighting the endemic blue winged goose, watt led ibis and spot throated plover, as well as a representative of sub Saharan Africa’s only breeding population of ruddy shelduck and, in season a number of migrant waterfowl. An isolated population of he localized wattles crane is present seasonally, and usually easy to observe when it is around. The variety of smaller birds is somewhat limited. Red throated pipit, Thekla lark, Abyssinian longclaw and (seasonally) yellow wagtail are the common ground birds, while the lovely tacazze sunbird is often seen feeding on flowering aloes.
Although less celebrated than the colorful ethnic groups of South Omo, Konso must rank as among the most singular of African nations. Now governed as a Special Woreda within the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ region, the people of Konso had little contact with the rest of Ethiopia until recent times, and the area remains staunchly traditionalist in character.
The most outwardly distinctive feature of Konso country is the aesthetically pleasing town and villages, which in some respects bear an unexpected (though purely coincidental) resemblance to the Dogon villages of Mali. Unusually for this part of Africa, the Konso traditionally live in congested centralized settlements, typically situated on the top of hill and enclosed by stone walls measuring up to 2m high. These walled hilltop settlements usually have no more than three or four entrance gates, and can be reached only via a limited number of steep footpaths. This made the villages easily defensible, an important consideration for an isolated people whose territory was, in the past, under constant threat of cattle raids and military attacks from the flanking lowlands.
Every village consists of a number of sub communities, each of which is centered upon a Mora or communal house. This is tall building with an open sided ground floor supported by juniper trunks, and a sharply angled thatched roof covering a wooden ceiling. The ground floor serves as a shady place where villagers’ men, boys and girls, but not grown women can relax, gossip, play and make important communal decisions. Customarily, all boys from the age of 12 upwards are required to sleep in the ceiling of the Mora until they get married and even married men are expected to spend part of the night there. This custom, though still enforced, derives from more beleaguered days, when the elder boys and men often needed to be mobilized quickly when a village was attacked. The Mora also serves as a guesthouse for male visitors from the other villages. Girls and women are not generally allowed to sleep in the Mora, through these days some villages will make an exception for faranji tourists!.
The erection of poles and stones form an important part of Konso ritual. In any village square, you'll see a number of so-called Victory Stones standing to mark important events generally victories over attempted raiders or conquerors-in the village's history. More famous are the Konso Waga, carved wooden grave markers that are often (and rather misleadingly) referred to as totems. Traditionally, a Waga will be erected above the grave of any important Konso man or warrior, surrounded by smaller statues of his Wives and defeated foes. The somber facial features of the dead warrior are carved onto the Waga, complete with enlarged and bucked teeth made from animal bones-creating a rather leery impression that is only reinforced by the impressively proportioned penis the deceased typically has clasped in his hand! Intriguingly, these grave markers and victory stones have an obvious precursor in the stelae that mark medieval graves around modern-day Dilla, and oral tradition indicates that the proto-Konso migrated from about the right place at about the right time for there to be some link between these customs. 
The Hamer, who number about 35,000 and occupy a large territory that stretches east from the Omo River to Lake Chew Bahir, stand out as perhaps the archetypal people of South Omo. Not only do they speak one of the Omotic tongues unique to this small area of southern Ethiopia, but they also display an elaborate and eclectic selection of body decorations that embraces the full gamut of Omo specialties, with the notable exception of lip plates. 
In common with most other people of South Omo, the Hamer are pastoralists by custom, and take great pride in the size of their cattle herd, though in reality agriculture now plays a far greater role in their subsistence. They are closely allied to the Bena people, whose territory lies to the north of theirs, and who speak a similar language and freely intermarry with the Hamer. The well-documented cultural links between Ancient Egypt and highland Ethiopia may also extend to the Hamer and other people of South Omo. Professor Ivo Strecker, who has studied Hamer culture for three decades, and lived among them for long periods, notes that the environment and agro-pastoralist lifestyle of the Hamer is close to that of the early period of Egyptian civilization. Furthermore, he has documented striking similarities between current day utensils and decorations of the Hamer and identical items depicted on early Egyptian paintings, notably the woko, a type of hooked forked herding stick, and the headrests used by Hamer men.
Although most visitors to South Omo visit a Hamer market, it is also very rewarding to visit one of the smaller villages that lie outside the Hamer towns of Turmi and Dimeka. Incredibly neat, and constructed entirely from mud, wood and thatch, one of the most striking aspects of these small villages-which typically consist of a few extended families across perhaps 10-15 huts – is the total absence of non-organic or Western artifacts. It might seem banal when put into words, but it is nevertheless rather sobering to encounter such simplicity and evident lack of material want, and to contrast it against our own restless need for distraction and accumulation of useless paraphernalia.
The most celebrated residents of South Omo are undoubtedly the Mursi, a distinctive group of pastoralists who number about 5,000, and whose territory is more or less bounded by the Omo River to the west and the Mago River to the east. The subject of several television documentaries, as well as Leslie Wood head’s book A Box Full of Spirits (Heinemann), the Mursi are best known for one admittedly very quirky item of decoration: the famous lip plates.
Mind you, the path to matrimony is no smoother for Mursi men. Traditionally, no Mursi man can marry unless he has won a Donga, a stick fight in which two contestants painted in white chalk paste pummel each other violently with heavy 2m-long poles. In past times, fights to the death were commonplace, but these days it is more normal for one fighter to submit before things go that far. The victorious fighter is carried off by a group of eligible girls, who then decide which one of them will marry him.