3 Days Omo Valley Tribes Tours

This 3 Days Omo Valley Tribes Tours of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley offers an immersive experience with its most iconic tribes. Highlights include meeting the Hamer people in Turmi, vibrant beadwork, and clay hairstyles; the Karo people in Murulle, famous for their striking white chalk body decorations; the Nyangatom people, adorned with intricate jewelry and goatskin skirts; and the Ari people in Jinka, skilled in pottery, blacksmithing, and traditional liquor making. The journey concludes with a visit to the Mursi tribe in Mago National Park, where women wear iconic lip plates and ear ornaments, offering a glimpse into Ethiopia’s rich cultural diversity.

Day 01 Fly Addis Ababa to Jinka and Drive to Turmi

After breakfast, you will take to airport your flight to Jinka. You will be met upon arrival and drive to Turmi Hamer Village. The Hamer they are known for their unique custom of “bull jumping,” which initiates a boy into manhood, practice of body adornment and wearing a multitude of colorful beads. The men of the tribe will often style their hair with clay, creating a sculpture of sorts that is styled with various pigments, mostly red and white, and in smoothing the clay they create very small protruding tube in which they house ostrich feathers from their hunts.

Overnight Paradise Lodge in Turmi

Day 02 Drive Turmi – Murulle – Turmi – Jinka

Feb 21 Day 05 Drive Turmi – Karo – Turmi

This day you will drive to Murulle where you can find the Karo people.  Karo People is very famous for their splendid body decoration, which they paint their bodies and faces with white chalk to prepare for a ceremony. The women scar their chest believing it makes them beautiful. The men’s scars represent an enemy or dangerous animal killed. Visit and proceed to Nyangatom people, 17 km away from the Murulle area. To adore their long and lean bodies, the Nyangatom women wear numerous necklaces and long Skirts from goatskins that are richly decorated. Then back to turmi for lunch drive to Jinka to meet the Ari people, the largest group in the lower Omo Valley, recognized for their banana tree skirts, pottery expertise, blacksmithing, and traditional liquor distillation.

Overnight Eco Omo Lodge Jinka

Day 03 Drive Jinka to Mursi and Fly to Addis Ababa

After breakfast at the hotel Take a day excursion to Mago National Park to visit the Mursi village (70 km). We devote half day to the study of the Mursi culture. The Mursi women, like their Surma cousins, live on the other bank of the Omo River, are famous for their large round (and not only) lip plates worn by women. There are several theories of the wearing of lip plates: disfiguring to prevent enslavement by Arabs in antiquity; protection against the penetration of evil spirits into the body through the mouth; determination of social status, showing the amount of cattle that the groom must pay as a dowry for the bride owning the plate. Mursi are unsurpassed masters of scarification. The scars on their bodies symbolize social status and past merits. The scars are created by using a razor blade and camel thorn. To achieve a bulge, an ash or a fly larva is planted in the wound, which, among other things, eliminates all possible infections. Later Drive back to Jinka airport your flight to Addis Ababa.