Ethiopia Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley

Photographic Expedition 28th November to 04th December 2016 (7 days / 6 nights)

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______

ORYX’s Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley extension will take us to one of the wildest and most ethnically diverse places on Earth – the Omo Valley. This is primarily a cultural photographic experience during which we will interact with several tribal communities who still live almost exactly as they did hundreds of years ago. Sadly, development and the ravages of modernization are threatening these unique peoples, and as such the Omo Valley is a see it while you can destination.

This harsh and inhospitable place has over ten distinctly different tribes existing within a 38 mile / 60 km radius; each with its own unique language, clothing, hairstyles and bodily ornamentation. Our expedition focuses on 3 of these tribes: the Mursi, Karo and Hamar. This is a true photographic expedition to encounter some of the most remarkable tribal people on Earth!

Your photographic highlights…

 Visiting one of the world’s most remote tribal areas in Africa

 Photographing the unique and isolated people of the Lower Omo Valley, including the Mursi, Karo and Hamar tribes

 Boat ride on Lake Chamo to the "Crocodile Market”

Your expedition at a glance…

Tour Dates 28th November to 04th December 2016 (7 days / 6 nights) US$3,795 per person in shared accommodation. Approximately Tour Price US$410 on domestic flights. Internal flight cost is excluded from the tour cost. See below for more details. Limited to 8 participants & ORYX Photographic leader Nelis Tour Size Wolmarans

Day 1, 28th November Arrival Addis Ababa (Jupiter Hotel) Day 2, 29th November Addis Ababa to Arba Minch (Paradise Lodge) Day 3, 30th November Arba Minch to Turmi (Buska Lodge) Day 4, 01st December Turmi area (Buska Lodge) Day 5, 02nd December Turmi to Jinka (Eco – Omo Safari Lodge) Day 6, 03rd December Mago National Park (Mursi Tribe) to Arba Minch (Paradise Lodge) Day 7, 04th December Flight from Arba Minch to Addis Ababa and depart

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______

Your expedition in detail…

Day 1, 28th November: Arrival in Addis Ababa

Depending on our arrival time into Addis Ababa today, we will take a private trip into town and visit the largest open-air market in Africa – the Merkato. Here you will be presented with confusing, but fascinating, glimpses of the vast range of goods and artifacts available from all parts of the country, as well as experiencing the traditional Ethiopian trade exchange in the open air, where you can literally purchase anything you desire! There are also a number of fascinating museums and churches within the city centre to explore. One of these is the National Museum, which is famous for its hominid fossil remains of ‘Lucy’, locally known as ‘Dinknesh’ (meaning wonderful). Alternatively, you are welcome to simply relax at hotel in preparation for the short flight in the morning.

Overnight Jupiter Hotel or similar

Day 2, 29th November: Addis Ababa to Arba Minch

Today we head for the Bole International Airport and fly to Arba Minch in southern Ethiopia. After settling in at our hotel, we may, time depending, visit Chencha, a “city” lying atop the eastern wall

of the Great Rift Valley and inhabited by the Dorze tribe. The Dorze are famed weavers who live in tall huts that resemble a giant elephant head. All around Chencha are smaller Dorze villages, which were grouped around the “city” when it was the regional capital. These people have a staple diet of a type of bread made from the fermented false-banana tree. Men are occupied in the day by many

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______tasks including the weaving of their brightly coloured cloths. They are also a farming people who terrace the hills around their villages for crop growing. Women look after the children, spin cotton, collect firewood and prepare food for the family. The traditional clothing of the Dorze consists of cloths called “shammas”, which have gained popularity throughout Ethiopia. Their uniquely shaped and impossibly tall grass huts last for many years. We will have the opportunity to enter these huts and visit with traditional and friendly Dorze people as they go about their daily chores, as well as taste their traditional food and fiery brews!

Tonight we will stay at a lodge, perched high on a cliff and which overlooks a bridge of land separating the light-brown coloured Lake Abaya in the north from the darker waters of Lake Chamo in the south.

Overnight Paradise lodge

Day 3, 30th November: Arba Minch to Turmi

After breakfast, we depart by road towards Turmi, home of the Hamar Tribe, and visiting the Konso and Erbore tribal villages en route. Deep into the parched bush, far from any city, Ethiopia’s lower Omo Valley is truly a lost world. To this day, the valley remains rich in traditional culture and human history. We will photograph along the way before arriving around lunchtime at Buska Lodge, our accommodation for the next 2 nights. Situated in the heart of southern Ethiopia, Buska Lodge is an unpretentious ecolodge offering the best accommodation and service in the region. The location is ideal for photographing both the Hamar as well as the Karo Tribes, our main photographic subjects during our stay here.

In the afternoon we may pay a visit to a local Hamar village and spend the afternoon capturing images of these fascinating people. The Hamar people are a tribe of subsistence agro- pastoralists who have been described as the most beautiful and dignified people in the valley. Along with the other local tribes, cattle are the focus of their cultural and socioeconomic existence, although bee keeping also forms an important aspect of their culture.

Overnight Buska Lodge

Day 4, 1st December: Turmi area.

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______Please note that we do not have a fixed schedule for the next days. Instead, your guide will assess daily which tribe is the best to photograph according to your particular photographic requirements.

We will spend time photographing two of the most colourful tribes in the Omo Valley, the Hamar and the Karo. The Hamar is one of the most well known tribes in Southern Ethiopia. They inhabit the territory east of the Omo River and have villages in both Turmi and Dimeka.

They are especially well-known for their unique rituals, including a cattle-leaping ceremony that the young men have to undergo in order to reach adulthood and to marry. They are a highly ‘superstitious’ people, and to this day they consider twins to be babies born outside of wedlock, while children whose upper milk teeth develop before their lower teeth are deemed to be ‘evil’ or ‘unclean’.

For this reason, such children are discarded in the bush and simply left to die, as they would rather lose a single child than inflict any disaster upon their community. The Hamar people are also known for one of the most bizarre rituals on Earth. This is when the women allow themselves to be whipped by the male members of their family as a symbol of their love! The scars of such encounters are conspicuously evident on the bodies of all Hamar women.

These women take great pride in their appearance and wear traditional dresses consisting of a brown goatskin skirt adorned with dense vertical rows of red and yellow beads. Their hair is characteristically fixed in dense ringlets with butterfat mixed with red ochre. They also wear many bracelets and necklaces fashioned of beads or metal, depending on their age, wealth and marital status. The men wear woven cloth wrapped around the waist and many elders wear delicately

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______coloured clay head caps that are fashioned into their hair and adorned with an ostrich feather.

As mentioned, the young Hamar men are famous for their “Evangadi dance” and “Bull jumping”

ceremony (it is as part of this ceremony that the afore-mentioned whipping occurs). This ritual entails young men who wish to marry jumping over a line of bulls, thereby proving their worth to their intended bride’s family. It also signifies their advent into adulthood.

Here, in the heart of the Omo Valley, we also find another tribe known for its elaborate body and face paintings, the Karo. These people live along the east bank of the Omo River and practice flood retreat cultivation, their main crops being maize, sorghum and beans. Unlike the other tribes, they keep only a small number of cattle due to the prevalence of tsetse flies. Like many of the tribes in the Omo, they paint their bodies and faces with white chalk to prepare for any ceremonies. The chalk is mixed with yellow rock, red iron ore and charcoal to make its requisite colour. Facemasks are worn at times and they have clay hair buns adorned with feathers.

Scarification is also an important part in the Karo people’s lives. This includes the complete scarification of a man’s chest with which to indicate that he has killed an enemy or dangerous animal (Amongst the Karo, killing one’s enemies isn’t viewed as an act of murder, but as an act of honour!). This scarification process involves lightly slicing the skin with knives or razor blades and then rubbing ash into the open wounds to produce a permanently raised effect. The Karo women have decoratively-scarred abdomens, which are considered sensual and very desirable.

Overnight Buska Lodge

Day 5, 2nd December: Turmi to Jinka

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______In the morning, we have an excursion to Omorate to visit the Dasenech people who are the southernmost people of the country and are known for their scarifications. In the afternoon we will drive to Jinka. Upon arrival at Eco-Omo Safari Lodge we will check in and have lunch before departing for Mago National Park. The Mursi tribe lives within and between the Omo and Mago NPs, which include most of their best agricultural and grazing land. The Mursi, with an estimated population of around 3900 people, are a sub-Saharan African nomadic cattle herder people located deep within the Omo valley. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the home of the Mursi is one of the most isolated areas of the country.

Our lodge for tonight is located in the heart of the Omo Valley. Here we can enjoy the beauty of this region as well as experience something truly unique, with front seat views into the life of Ethiopia’s untouched tribes!

Overnight Eco-Omo Safari Lodge

Day 6, 3rd December: Mago National Park (Mursi Tribe) to Arba Minch via Key Afer

We have an early morning start as we enter Mago National Park at 06:00 in order to reach the Mursi Tribe while the light is still soft. Most famous for the clay lip plates that the women insert in their lower lips, the Mursi are probably one of the last tribes in Africa amongst whom it is still the norm for women to wear these large pottery or wooden discs or plates.

The lip plate (dhebi a tugoin) has become the chief visible distinguishing characteristic of the fascinating Mursi people. A girl’s lower lip is cut, typically by her mother or another woman of her settlement, when she reaches the age of 15 or 16. The cut is then held open by a wooden plug until the wound heals. It appears to be up to the individual girl to decide how far to stretch the lip, which she does by inserting progressively larger plugs over several months. Some girls even persevere until their lips can take plates of 5 inches (12 cm) or more in diameter!

The Mursi and their neighbours became part of the Ethiopian State in the final years of the 19th century, when Emperor Menelik II established control over the southwestern lowlands bordering Kenya and Sudan. This was an area inhabited by several small tribes with fluid identities, highly adaptable to environmental conditions and capable of easily absorbing outsiders into their communities. The Mursi as we know them today are the product of a large-scale migratory movement of cattle herding peoples in the general direction of the Ethiopian highlands. Three separate movements may be distinguished in the recent history of the Mursi, each the result of growing environmental pressure associated with the drying out of the Omo basin over the last 150 – 200 years.

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______The Mursi attribute overwhelming cultural importance to cattle. Almost every significant social relationship – particularly marriage – is marked and authenticated by exchanging cattle. The “Bride wealth” (ideally consisting of 38 head of cattle) is handed over by the groom’s family to the bride’s

father, who must meet the demands of a wide range of relatives from different clans. This ensures that cattle are continually redistributed around the community, thereby helping to provide for the long-term economic security of individuals as well as their families.

After a fascinating time in the Omo Valley, we make our way back to Arba Minch.

Overnight Paradise Lodge

Day 7, 4th December: Flight from Arba Minch to Addis Ababa and depart

If time allows this morning, we will pay a visit to the southernmost Rift Valley Lake of Ethiopia – Lake Chamo. A boat trip on Lake Chamo is among the best anywhere in Ethiopia as it is home to numerous Hippos and the world's most spectacular concentrations of giant Nile Crocodiles at the so called “Crocodile Market". The rich waters of the lake make it a great site for waterbirds, including vocal African Fish Eagle, Yellow-billed Stork and rafts of Great White Pelican, and together with the stunning scenery make this a truly unforgettable place. Fishing for Nile Perch and many other species by locals on their traditional boats is said to be the best in the country, and it is these fish species that also sustain the lakes monstrous crocodiles!

Thereafter, we depart Arba Minch to connect with our scheduled flight back to Addis Ababa, where this exciting photographing expedition concludes and you will then depart to your final destination.

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______

Financial Arrangements

The fee for the 2016 ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition is US$3,795 per person in shared accommodation. A single supplement of US$240 will be charged if you wish to have single accommodation. If ORYX cannot provide you with a rooming partner although you choose to share, the single supplement will become applicable. We will, however, make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a rooming partner is found if you do wish to share. The cost for the return flight Addis Ababa – Arba Minch is approximately US$410 and is exclusive of the tour cost.

The tour price includes:

 Accommodation on a twin room sharing basis;  Meals as per the itinerary;  All entrance fees as per the itinerary;  All transfer in and out services;  All ground transportation using Landcruiser-style 4x4 vehicles;  Professional English speaking guide;  Portage fees;  All local guide fees;  Scout fees, where applicable;  Boat hire;  Tips for local guides, hotel staff etc;  Photographic fees for photographing people in the Omo Valley;  Bottled mineral water – 1lt per person per day other than the beverage served during each meal;  Government tax; and  Guiding services of ORYX Professional Leader Nelis Wolmarans.

And excludes:

 Any flights;  Special gratuities;  Lunch and dinner in Addis;  Any alcoholic drinks;  Personal expense like souvenirs, laundry, etc; and  Any expense which is not stated in the ‘Included List’ above.

Important

 Please note that these costs are based upon a minimum of 6 paying participants. If we do not have sufficient registration, then a small group supplement will need to charged  Furthermore, these costs are subject to unforeseen increases in tour related costs and may have to be adjusted as a result.

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______ Many of our travellers take their photography seriously and often have similar goals to many of the other group participants, however people are different and although the common denominator on our trips is photography, we do find that general group interests, personalities, behaviour etc. can differ markedly from person to person and from group to group. The very nature of a tour does mean that people from all walks of life end up spending up to three weeks at a time essentially ‘living’ and ‘co-associating’ with people they may never usually associate with at home. We at ORYX Photography take group dynamics very seriously and understand that healthy group dynamics lead to successful, homogenous tours that can be enjoyed to their full potential.  It can get very hot in the Omo Valley, often more than 30 degrees C / 86 Fahrenheit  There are several long drives on this Ethiopia trip, but we will take regular rest and photographic stops to break the long journeys. We highly recommend that you bring along an Ipad / Tablet / reading material to keep yourself busy on these long drives.  Road conditions are variable – please take note that the conditions can be very poor in remote areas and do differ significantly to what you may have grown accustomed to in more Westernized societies. In Ethiopia we make use of both Toyota Land Cruiser and Nissan 4x4’s, and as we cover large areas there are a good number of long travel days where we will be spending a considerable amount of time in vehicles.  Accommodation throughout the trip is generally comfortable, but are more basic in the Omo Valley. Please note that the hotels that we make use of are usually the most suitable (locality-wise) and the best available accommodations in most of the areas that we visit.  Please also be aware that there will also some camping in Omo Valley (not permanent tented camps but a mobile operation setup in a suitable area and exclusively for us). The tents are quite large, and our experienced ground crew and chef will make this a memorable portion of our trip in the remote African setting.  The food in Ethiopia is generally fairly basic and consists of both western and local cuisine. In some cases we will also enjoy “bush breakfasts and lunches” on the side of the road. This will occur mainly in remote regions of the country and will be prepared by our very able drivers.  The people of the Omo Valley may be hostile at times; your local Ethiopian guide, and photographic leader will deal with the local people especially with regards to photographing them and the associated photographic fees. It is important to note that prior permission is necessary before capturing any images of any individual. This will also entail a small payment per photo taken, which your guide will negotiate on your behalf beforehand.  Please take note that not every village in the Omo region welcomes tourists, and we need to respect the privacy of the villagers who do not want to be photographed. Not every village has people who share a common language with our local Ethiopian guide, and thus in such instances it is not possible to communicate with the villagers to ensure we can get our guests the images they would like to capture. We only visit villages where the inhabitants are happy to co-operate and work with tourists.  Please note that we cannot guarantee exclusive visits (i.e. ORYX group only) to the villages as other tourists also stop at some of these villages for the same reasons as explained above.  Please note that there will be an element of flexibility to our schedule on this tour. The Omo Valley is in general crisscrossed with sandy riverbeds that are typically dry when we conduct our safaris, however they can flood at any time, necessitating detours or changes in schedule. Furthermore, the Omo Valley is a culturally diverse area that experiences episodes of tribal conflict, often unexpected. Your local guide and ORYX leader will assess daily which tribe is the best to photograph according to your particular photographic requirements, bearing in mind local conditions both climatic and political.

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______ We may be forced to change or alter the itinerary at short or no notice due to unforeseen circumstances; please be aware that we will attempt to adhere as close to the original program as possible.  The tribes of the Omo Valley are a fascinating collection of peoples that are facing many challenges, with the rampant onslaught of modernity being one of the primary ones. These are not “wild” or “uncontacted tribes”; we can expect to see some amazing traditional costumes, decorations and customs (some quite unlike anything else on earth!), however this all needs to be viewed within the context of the changing times. That being said, the Omo Valley is a large and beautiful region, and in some areas is still covered in vast savannas that sport a very low population density, which is in stark contrast to the highlands of Ethiopia. The Omo with its special tribes and wide vistas and is a very special piece of Africa that we at ORYX are very passionate about, and we hope to share this enthusiasm with you on this photographic adventure!

Gratuities

As noted above, gratuities (drivers, hotel staff, porters, restaurants etc.) are included on this ORYX tour. However gratuities for your ORYX guide are not included – should you feel that you have received exceptional service, then it is entirely appropriate to tip him/her.

Arrival and departure details

Day 1 is scheduled as an arrival day for the tour, so you are welcome to arrive at any time on this day. The tour will conclude in Addis Ababa in the late afternoon of Day 7 (this is the arrival day for those participating in the ORYX Simien Mountains & Lalibela Photographic Expedition). Further meeting details in this regard will be forwarded to you in due course.

PLEASE NOTE: If you wish to arrive early and/or depart late for either the main tour or the extension and would like assistance or advice in this regard, kindly contact the ORYX office.

Flights

Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa is the main port of entry for international flights into Ethiopia and is well serviced by British Airways and Ethiopian Airways. We have the capacity to advise you on the best route according to your preferences, but your local travel agent will best be able to book these flights for you. If you would like further assistance, kindly contact the ORYX office.

IMPORTANT: please DO NOT book your international flights until you have consulted the ORYX office for confirmation on the status of the tour. Please do send us your preferred flight routing so that we can confirm that it will work logistically with the running of the tour.

Photo Credits: All images by ORYX Co – founder Marius Coetzee©

ORYX – Vanishing Cultures of the Omo Valley Photographic Expedition 2016 ______

ORYX Worldwide Photographic Expeditions (Pty) Ltd PO Box 13972, Cascades, Pietermaritzburg, 3202, South Africa Registration number: 2014/091441/07 Tel: +27 33 394 0225 Fax: +27 88 033 394 0225 Email: [email protected] Website: www.oryxphotography.com