Southern Ethiopia Explorer

Take an overnight Ethiopian Airlines flight to Addis Ababa

On arrival, your dedicated, experienced and professional guide meets you and transfers you to Nexus Hotel where you stay overnight, breakfast included.

Fly with your guide to Arba Minch, a 'gateway' to the Southern region. Stay 2 nights at the comfortable Paradise Lodge with all meals indicated. You will be taken for sightseeing locally, or, you can relax at the lodge which has a large, sparkling pool and excellent restaurant. From the deck, there are marvellous views over the wide and densely forested gorge.

In the morning, take a boat trip on Lake Chamo, Nech'Sar National Park. Then take a guided visit to a Dorze village. The Dorze are best known for the design of their homes ('like bee-hives on steroids' as Philip Briggs writes in his Bradt Ethiopia Guide) and their weaving abilities..

Travel to Konso, where you see impressive, intricately terraced hillsides in the countryside. Overnight in Kanta Lodge, all meals included. You will be taken to see one of the unusual and distinctive Konso villages

Travel to Jinka, with a stop at Key-Afar market. Overnight in the simple Eco Omo Safari Lodge with all meals included.

Accompanied by an experienced local guide, your guide and your driver take you to one of the Mursi villages, where you get to know about the everyday lives of this tribe.

You can stop if you wish at Mago National Park for a break and for some sightseeing - there's good birding; plenty of butterflies and you may see small mammals such as Dik-diks.

Continue to Turmi, near where you overnight in Buska Lodge, all meals included.

In the morning, visit a Hamar village to get to know the culture of this tribe. Afterwards, visit Dimeka Market. Overnight in Buska Lodge, all meals included. During your time at Buska Lodge, you can also visit a village of the Karo tribe, overlooking the Omo.

After breakfast, depart on the long but scenic drive through varying countryside back to Arba Minch where you arrive in the afternoon and stay overnight in Paradise Lodge.

Drive via Sodo and the busy lakeside town of Awassa/ Hawassa, to Yirgalem, near which you stay for 2 nights in the charming Aregash Lodge with all meals included. Towards dusk your hosts will inevitably invite you for a traditional coffee ceremony, during which, as the sun sets over the forested gorge, one of the staff calls out to wild Spotted hyenas and you can witness a very scaled-down version of the better-known hyena-feeding events that go on in eastern Ethiopia.

'Yirgalem is lovely!', many who have been there report. We concur. There is good birding in the forest around the lodge (also, plenty of mischievous Grivet and Colobus monkeys about). You can also take a visit to see Forest coffee:Ethiopia is of salutatory significance for coffee enthusiasts, because it was originally discovered in the Ethiopian district of Kaffa. All over the country, coffee ceremonies are held usually in the early evening and Ethiopian coffee is internationally rated as among the best available, along with certain Latin American varieties. If you like, you can also visit the Tutu Falla stone structures near Wenago, past Dilla.

Tranquil Lake Langano is your destination today: set off after breakfast to the scenic Rift Valley Lakes region, where at Lake Langano you stay for the night in Hara Langano with all meals included.

After a relaxed breakfast (and if you wish, some sightseeing) at Lake Langano, travel up to Addis Ababa where you have the use of a day/evening room at Nexus Hotel. (Drive time is about 4 hours and if you like, you can stop at the Tiya Stelae site). V

Evening transfer to Bole airport to check in for the Ethiopian Airlines flight back to London.

Fly home with amazing memories of an incredible trip.