6-Day Omo Valley Tribal Tour with Dorze, Konso and Mursi

• Catch a morning flight to Arba Minch. Meet your tour guide and get introduced to the driver(s) for your expedition. Then jump in the car and drive uphill towards the Dorze tribe village.
• Here, you will explore the Dorze people, who are excellent experts in weaving, as shown through their traditional costumes and elephant-mimicking houses. The Dorze, who occupy the breathtaking, lush, and green mountainous southern escarpment of the Rift Valley, depend on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood.
• The Dorze are also free-spirited and friendly people, sometimes even preparing small events for their visitors by dressing in ceremonial clothes.
• After completing our visit, descend back to Arba Minch while enjoying the scenery. After a lunch break, get on the road to Konso. The Konso people are an ethnic group revered for their landscaping tradition of terracing and housing style, a centuries-old engineering mastery that has become a way of life.
• This adaptation to an unfavorable rocky environment and steep terrain, driven solely by social survivalism, was rewarded by UNESCO in 2011.
• The main purpose of constructing the horizontal stone-layer walls is to retain soil quality, serving as protection against erosion and landslides. On top of that, they are also used as a barricade during a possible incursion by an enemy. Once in Konso, we will visit one of the villages, Gamole, and learn more about their authentic traditions.
• Learn about the community housing for the youth and the homeless, generation poles installed once every 18 years to indicate the age of a particular neighborhood, circular oval-shaped maturity stones, and much more. Overnight at Kanta Lodge.

• Wake up early in the morning and set forth to Arbore. The Arbore, meaning "land of bulls," are an ethnic group who occupy the southern arid lowlands of the Omo Valley, near Chew Bahir (Salt Sea).
• Even though they are believed to be descendants of the Konso ethnic group, they have their own language and traditions.
• After we complete our visit, we continue driving towards Turmi, with an en route stop to see the playful and talented Bana boys walking on stilts.
• After arriving in Turmi, you will camp at the Hamar tribe's village. There, you will engage with a Hamar family to learn about their daily routines, lifestyle, and activities.

Overnight at Emerald Lodge.

• After breakfast, you will get to explore the authentic tribal open-air market of the nomadic Hamar, who share similar cultural traditions with their close relatives, the Bana tribe.
• Learn about Hamar ladies' unique goat-skin dresses and hair beautification styles, as well as their quite rare rituals, language, daily activities, and means of economic wealth.
• After an hour of relaxation, take a short evening drive to one of the Hamar villages.
• If fortunate, witness their evening rituals like the Evangadi, an evening singing and dancing ceremony, and the bull jumping ceremony, a ritual performed by young Bana and Hamar boys as a rite of passage toward marriage.

Overnight at Emerald Lodge or similar.

• Wake up early in the morning and drive to the Nyangatom tribal village of Kakuta. The Nyangatom are said to be descendants of the Toposa tribe in South Sudan.
• Here, we will have opportunities to explore the tribespeople, who live in a climatically challenging and very arid area of the Omo. The women wear numerous strands of beads, which they build upon throughout their lives.
• Without wasting time, drive to the Karo village of Korcho.
• The Karo are the smallest ethnic group within the Omo Valley and Ethiopia, and they are well known for their attention to appearance through body painting - a beautification of their faces and bodies with kneaded colored ochre, white chalk, and yellow mineral rocks. Karo, in the tribe's language, means "fish eater."
• Drive back to Turmi for an overnight stay at Emerald Lodge or similar.

• Right in the morning after breakfast, drive to Omorate. Here, explore the scattered village of the Dasanech tribe by crossing the Omo River in an improvised flat-bottomed wooden boat.
• Settle for lunch, then continue driving towards Jinka. In Jinka, get a glimpse of an Aari tribe village.

Overnight at Eyob Hotel or similar.

• Wake up in the morning and, after breakfast, make a short excursion to Mago National Park to visit the Mursi tribe. The women are known for stretching their lips and earlobes with circular plates.
• After wrapping up our time with the iconic Mursi, return to Jinka. From Jinka, continue driving to Keyafer.
• Here in Keyafer town, you will witness a fairly diverse open-air market dominated by Bana, Aari, and Tsemay tribes, as well as traders and merchants from Jinka and other neighboring towns and villages.
• Return to Jinka for your flight to Addis Ababa.