Thanksgiving Day at Nechsar National Park and Lake Chamo

Itinerary Day 20: Thanksgiving at Arbaminch-Nechsar National Park - Lake Chamo 

In the morning, will have a game drive around the Nechsar National Park. This national park, with thrilling landscapes of mountains and lakes is one of the most attractive parks in the country. We will have the chance to see different mammals which inhabit the park including, the endemic antelope, Swayne’s Hartebeest, Gerenuk, Grants Gazelle, and Burchele Zebra. In the afternoon, we will have a boat cruise over Lake Chamo to see some of the biggest African crocodiles. Hippopotamus, and many beautiful aquatic birds including the lovely Kingfisher and African Fish Eagle.

Journal:  As I write this the blog is hopelessly behind, due primarily to the absence of adequate internet for much of the trip.   Decided to leap ahead and post our Thanksgiving Day now, and will continue to fill in the sizable journal gaps as time and internet availability permits.

Awoke on Thanksgiving Day thinking about the great Thanksgiving Day feasts we've enjoyed with friends and family in the bay area and in Chicago.  We'll miss the meal and the camaraderie,and the meal, and the meal.  But... we still had a great day in store.

The plan was to pick up a boat captain and a "Scout" (always required in the National Parks - think armed park ranger), drive to Lake Chamo, take a boat tour across the lake, a nature hike in the park on the other side, and see what there was to see.  As it turns out - there was a lot to see.

 On the drive over we saw these Guinea Fowl by the side of the road.

All I could think was how they would look roasted and stuffed in lieu of a turkey. On arrival at Lake Chamo we found our boat and the captain poled us out.

I forgot what the captain's real name was....

... we all called him "Captain Obama".

First stop - Crocodile Cove

There be monsters here.

We're told this where you find the largest crocs in Africa, and I've no reason to doubt it. They're the biggest I've ever seen by far. Some looked as long as the boat. Still... I was thinking... tastes like chicken... maybe - instead of turkey... stuffed croc kinda sounds good.

More sightings on the cruise across...

Fish Eagle

We watched him snatch a fish but didn't get a great shot

Hippo

Pelicans

Pelican air ballet

Giant Monitor Lizard

On the other side we disembarked and hiked up over a dry hot rridge. Then it got even better.

We found the herd of Burchelles Zebra we hoped to see. They strolled right by us. We watched and walked with them for almost an hour.

click to biggify

Sigrid could not get enough...

I don't know how many hundred of pictures she shot. This is just a sampling.

All in all, it was pretty frggin' amazing...

 ... and a truly great day.

But I still missed my traditional Thanksgiving Dinner.

Roasted chicken legs, processed mashed potatoes and a side of spaghetti was as close as I could get. 

I know...



Editors Note: I intend to pre-load and schedule automated blog posts with the daily itinerary for our Ethiopian adventure. For those interested, this may be an easy way to follow along. Since we will not have internet access for most of the trip, my hope is this will make it easier to add some pics and journal commentary if and when we run across an internet connection. If there are no pics or commentary, you'll just have to wait until we get back. We'll see how it goes. 

Jinka to Arba Minch - Konso and Dorze People

Itinerary Day 19: Drive from Jinka to Arbaminch

"In the morning, we will start driving back to Arba Minch with brief stops to visit different villages". 

 UPDATE: As we have been rearranging the itinerary day by day I've copied the relevant itinerary descriptions here. These entries from the November 17 and 23 itineraries:

"...we will drive to Turmi en-route visiting different cultural people and their villages which include the Konso and the undulating landscape of Konso area. The Konso are famous for their old and unique terracing and unusual engraved wooden statues of Konso grave markers."

"...we will make detour to the mountain village of Chencha, the home of the Dorze people. The Dorze people, renowned cotton weavers whose tall beehive shaped and bamboo woven dwellings are among the most distinctive structures to be seen anywhere in Africa."

Journal - Afternoon:

After departing Eco Omo we continue our exploration of the Omo River Valley. Today we visit two ancient cultures coping with burgeoning tourism and the economic development in the region.  First the Konso People.

Konso:

We found the stone terraced Konso village to be the most interesting architecturally of any we visited. 

Konso girl

Konso garden - sorghum grains and hops

The village is notable for the rich variety of grains, fruit, and vegetable in the terraced gardens, their use of  advanced crop rotation, and the generation tree that dates the age of this village in centuries.

Dorze:

The Dorze People are known as expert weavers. They weave their houses and fences out of inset (false banana tree) and bamboo. They weave their baskets out of grass. They weave scarves, hats and other items out of cotton.

 Okorno

Our village guide, the chief/spokesman Okorno Dorze wore dreadlocks, western clothes and spoke excellent English.  He walked us through the village with an easy going manner and well practiced patter. The Dorze are sophisticated in the ways of tourism and seem to pull off the trick of taking advantage the tourist trade without losing their identity. They maintain accommodations for tourists within the village and have several low key displays of pottery, weaved scarves, hats, etc. for tourist consumption spread throughout the village tour. They also have a cheesy shield, spear, jaguar skin and headdress ready to spring on unsuspecting tourists willing to make fools of themselves (see picture at top of post).

 Konso girl making gojo bread

At the end of the tour we were invited to sample the gojo bread we saw being baked earlier and offered shots of areke that was distilled in the village. Yohanes informs us the Dorze make the best areke. 

Who am I to argue? I had three shots. 

We filled an empty water bottle with areke in the hope of bringing some back to San Francisco. After the areke shots we were directed toward the stalls offering handcrafted scarves, pottery, and carvings.Surprisingly, we purchased more stuff than at any other village. Pretty sharp those Dorze.

Dorze scarves

Editor's Note: I intend to pre-load and schedule automated blog posts with the daily itinerary for our Ethiopian adventure. For those interested, this may be an easy way to follow along. Since we will not have internet access for most of the trip, my hope is this will make it easier to add some pics and journal commentary if and when we run across an internet connection. If there are no pics or commentary, you'll just have to wait until we get back. We'll see how it goes. UPDATED

Eco Omo Lodge

Itinerary Day 19: Jinka-Arba Minch

Depart Eco Omo Lodge.

Journal - Morning:

I'm up early and sitting on the deck of our “permanent” tent at Eco Omo Lodge. The sun is peeking over the trees on the bank of the Mago River. Sigrid is not yet awake so I am enjoying an early cup of coffee  and sorting the sounds drifting over the river: cocks crowing; cows complaining; a whisper of river riffles splashing over rocks; crows claiming turf; the morning call to prayer from a Jinka mosque; chatter from people near the river; dogs barking; a distant car horn; more birds than I'll ever identify. 

 It is hard to describe just how good this coffee is. In most of our third world travel (Western Africa, Papua New Guinea, Wisconsin), the search for a good cup of coffee is a consistent theme and a continuous quest.  The Eco Omo Lodge is owned by an Italian couple so I'm guessing the Ethiopian bean is given an Italian roast and ground for espresso consistency. I normally drink coffee black, but I am enjoying this one with hot milk and a little sugar. It's thick and strong and tastes like chocolate. Really good. The warm fresh-baked banana bread is a perfect accompaniment.

A word on the lodge. Much travel of this nature is determined by the expectations going in. Sigrid's “Tripadviser.com” research set the bar very low for lodging in Jinka. The Eco Omo was a pleasant surprise. Make no mistake – this is not Western style luxury accommodations. You are sleeping in small beds in a musty “permanent” tent with limited electricity. The small attached bathroom offers temperamental to non-existent hot water. As near as I could tell, the only way to get a hot shower was during a two hour window in the evening with Eco Omo staff outside the tent continually adjusting the water pressure to prevent getting scalded or shocked with an  icy cold blast or both. Duct tape came in handy to defeat the 30 second water flow regulator on the shower fixture in order to try to adjust the temperature.  Still I settled for a slightly cool shower. 

That said, the staff was courteous and helpful, the food was good, the atmosphere pastoral and relaxed. The owner even baked a cake for Sigrid's birthday on our arrival.  The main dining lodge, bar and deck is nicely constructed with a view of the river and a great spot to enjoy a beer or coffee. You can get  limited but functional WIFI at the end of the day.  For lunch you can order a hot prosciutto and provolone panini sandwich as good as any you would find in Rome.

Tamara and her husband started this project over seven years ago and the lodge has been open less that three. It's still a work in progress, with big plans to add a coffee plantation and  swimming pool. It'll get better every year, but already is a "head and shoulders" better choice than any other option in the immediate Jinka area.

MW Recommended.

Editiors Note: I intend to pre-load and schedule automated blog posts with the daily itinerary for our Ethiopian adventure. For those interested, this may be an easy way to follow along. Since we will not have internet access for most of the trip, my hope is this will make it easier to add some pics and journal commentary if and when we run across an internet connection. If there are no pics or commentary, you'll just have to wait until we get back. We'll see how it goes.  UPDATED

Mago, Mursi and SORC

 Itinerary - Day 18: Jinka - Mursi

After having an early breakfast, we will drive from Jinka to Mursi Village. The Mursi, undoubtedly the most celebrated residents of South Omo are distinctive group of pastoralists. The Mursi are best known for their unique item of decoration, lip plates. Women of Mursi wear circular clay plate on their lower lip and the bigger a women can wear, the greater her value when she get married.

Journal:
Three items on the itinerary for today. We'll be driving through Mago National Park, visit the Mursi People, and after lunch at the lodge, the SORC Museum in Jinka. In a now familiar routine, the first stop is to pick up a mandatory Scout (armed Park Ranger) and a local guide.

 Mago National Park:

The drive through the park was scenic, but not much in the way of wildlife spotting. No surprise there, we were told that increased truck traffic on the main road and poaching had degraded the wildlife population.

I had a different take. When we were on a wildlife safari at lodges in Southern Africa, or  Ranthanbore in India, we committed significant time and effort to wildlife spotting including: two or three drives per day; starting early and ending late; and accompanied by local guides expert in tracking and finding critters.  If we had simply spent an hour driving through those parks in the middle of the day we probably would not have seen much either.

   We did see gazelle, dikdiks, and a variety of birds.We also saw elephant dropping along the road (they are hard to miss). Others who started earlier saw the elephants. The critters are out there. You just have to commit the time and effort to find them.

Mursi People:

As noted in the itinerary, the Mursi are among the most distinctive and recognizable of the local peoples in the Omo Valley. This is primarily due to the striking body modification  favored by many Mursi women -  wearing large lip plates.  This makes visiting and photographing  the Mursi a primary objective for most tourists, and this has a predictable impact on the people who live here.  We were early to visit the village, but saw other Land Cruisers streaming in as we were leaving.  Tourist shooting pictures and villagers competing to be photographed for a fee is a daily event in this village. A lot of issues to think about in that dynamic, all of which are beyond the scope of this little blog.  For some additional perspective, the journal of a woman traveler who took a different approach is linked here, and a 2004 academic paper on the tourist / Mursi interaction is linked here [pdf].

Beyond the lip plates, the next most noticeable element of the Mursi Village is the striking number of AK-47's shouldered by the men and women in the village.

A quick google query on why we are seeing so many of  these guns yields a few possibilities:

1. Needed to protect their cattle herd against raids from neighboring tribes.
2. Arms provided by the Ethiopian government to protect against incursion from Turkanen tribes similarly armed by the Kenyan government.
3. It's a prop to attract tourist cameras and tips.
4. All the above. 

 South Omo Research Center:

Many of my generation will probably recall  first reading and seeing pictures of Mursi in National Geographic and wondering about this strange body modifcation practice.  Of course, we cannot help but see the culture and mores of the Mursi, Hamar, and other peoples of the Omo Valley through the filter of our "first world" cultural values. By those standards some of their traditions are hard to accept, or even observe. This is not unique to western travelers. The Ethiopian government branded lip plates as "bad culture" and something to be discouraged.

The South Omo Research Center Museum provides a real service giving by a voice a to these local cultures.

 Among the excellent collection of artifacts in this small museum are text panels with quotes from the local people explaining what  their rituals and practices mean to them. It does not mean that women inviting whippings that raise bloody welts, or stick fights that maim, or extreme body modifications like lip plates will be any more comfortable or acceptable to Western eyes.  But at least the people who live this life are given this platform to speak for themselves and their culture.

Sago:  "The micere is also used during the initiation. Before I leap over the cattle my younger sisters will be whipped by the maz, the ones who have been already initiated. Each maz brings ten micere. My sisters are upset that I will be initiated and they say: 'I will be whipped by this maz until his micere have worn out. I will finish off all his whipping wands!' The maz only whips once with one micere, then he throws it away and takes the next one. She will wear them all off. That's the tradition connected with the initiate."

Editor's Note: I intend to pre-load and schedule automated blog posts with the daily itinerary for our Ethiopian adventure. For those interested, this may be an easy way to follow along. Since we will not have internet access for most of the trip, my hope is this will make it easier to add some pics and journal commentary if and when we run across an internet connection. If there are no pics or commentary, you'll just have to wait until we get back. We'll see how it goes. UPDATED