Embrace Ethiopia Immersion Travels

20/01/2019

Melkam Timket (Epiphany) to all Ethiopians who celebrate!

10/02/2017

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/02/black-mane-ethiopian-lions-video-endangered-species/

A National Geographic explorer spotted the adult male on a recent expedition to Bale Mountains National Park.

21/12/2016

Some interesting photos of one of the wildest places in Ethiopia
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/25/magazine/the-voyages-issue.html?_r=1

Photo essays from around the world by Andrea Frazzetta, Joachim Ladefoged, David Maurice Smith, Kirsten Luce, Sebastián Liste and Raymond Meeks.

27/03/2016

This land we call HOME never seizes to amaze us. It is full of surprises, leaving a lot to be discovered time and time again!!!

Grad student Evan Buechley was in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia when he photographed this snake. Turns out it was an unknown species that had never been identified. Until now. Nice work, Evan!

21/02/2016

This would come in handy for our industry!

East African Aviation, a new private airline, began operation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by providing air ambulance and charter flight services, The Reporter reported. The aviation was established by a former captain of Ethiopian Airlines, Mulat Lemlemayehu (Capt), with an outlay of 57 million birr. T…

25/01/2016

Do you agree with this list? What else surprised you during your travels in Ethiopia?

Getting great Ethiopian coffee isn’t easy Sure, you can find plenty of cool cafes in Addis that serve up excellent coffee, but if you want to experience the Ethiopian coffee ceremony that you might have seen on TV or heard about, you’ll need to venture out a bit further. Some of the best places to h…

28/08/2015

It all started when I saw a photograph – a dark crater filled with smoke and fire with a lake of bubbling lava flowing aggressively in the foreground.
The image lived in my mind day and night. I was consumed, and I knew the only way to cure my wanderlust was to see this amazing location myself. With a little research, I discovered the photo was of the Erta Ale Volcano in Ethiopia – one of only six lava lakes in the world. Just 6 months and a couple of layovers later, I was on the adventure of a lifetime throughout one of Africa’s most fascinating countries.

Ethiopia is raw, authentic and unforgettable. Each region is like stepping into a time capsule. Each village and town feel like a different world. Salt mines in the north are still excavated with primitive tools and transported by camel. The Southern tribes take pride in ritualistic scarification, lip plates and body war painting. Ethiopia is one of the first countries to adopt Christianity, in the first century AD. The numerous monasteries of Lalibela protect many of the ancient Christian texts.

Traveling through Ethiopia is not comfortable. Scorching heat and suffocating humidity, the risk of food poisoning, scarce water resources and hostile territories in the north all make Ethiopia a challenging country to photograph. Most roads are not paved and shared with pedestrians, cattle, and horse buggies so the travel is slow going. Accommodations are basic and running water and electricity is not guaranteed.

Rough conditions test you physically and mentally almost every single day. But if you stop resisting the discomfort, let your body acclimate and take it a day at a time, Ethiopia will open up, welcome you and show you some of it’s most precious treasures. This unique and incredible country and it’s people will also teach you to accept things how they are and embrace the present moment. After all, the present moment is the only thing we truly have right now. Live it to the fullest.


As the sun rises over Lake Asale, the salt traders are nearing the end of their three-day trek from the nearest town of Mekele. They will spend the next day excavating salt, cutting it up into bricks and loading the camels for the trip back. Each load a camel carries earns around $10, barely enough for the miners to feed their families and survive in this barren land with little resources. The entire region feels as if it is frozen in time. The local Afar people still live and work as they have been for centuries.

Lalibela, the center of Ethiopian Christianity, is famous for its monolithic churches built underground and undetected by enemies for hundreds of years. Most survive to this day in their original state. All the churches are active and priests still use century old books for prayer with the only source of light shining though small windows cut in the massive walls.

As we were photographing around a Bodi tribe’s village, a man approached us and communicated that he wanted a portrait with a gun. He started with a few typical poses with him standing and the weapon up, but soon got really into pointing the gun at everyone, including our group. Clearly, he was having a lot of fun with the photo session. Later he said “I was imagining I shot you all”, laughed and walked away. Luckily we made sure the gun was unloaded before handing it over.

Erta Ale is a challenging place to photograph. There are cracks all over the rim so it is dangerous to get too close as the top shelf could collapse at any moment. Toxic gasses and fumes rise up and are carried by the wind, sometimes completely covering the crater. Even with a good respirator it’s practically impossible not to cough and run for cover to catch one’s breath and hope for breaks in the wind.

Mursi women are known for their lip plates and decorative scars. Every girl has her lip cut at the age of 15. A small clay plate is inserted into the opening and replaced over time with a bigger one as the lip stretches. The larger the plate the more the woman is worth by the time she gets married.



As I was walking among the church worshipers at Sunday’s mass, most seemed totally oblivious to my presence and didn’t mind that I was taking pictures of them. After a while. I couldn’t help but put my camera down and just take in the serine atmosphere of this magical place. I wondered what were they thinking and feeling, or if they were thinking at all and just being in the moment.

Karo men paint their bodies and faces with white chalk to look as fierce as possible. It’s a daily routine that scares off enemies and also serves the purpose of making themselves more attractive to the opposite s*x.

The Dassanech people live near the border of Kenya by the shores of Lake Turkana. One of the most interesting tribes to photograph, but the location it is not so easy to get to. After a 3 hr drive through dusty roads, we had to cross the river full of crocodiles on dugout tribal canoes. What sounds like a dangerous place to live, actually helps the tribe survive. In times when cattle is lost to disease, local men hunt crocodiles as even a small one is enough to feed a family for days.

Being inside a church in Lalibela is a fascinating experience. The walls are blackened from years of candle burning. You must take off your shoes and walk on uneven stone floor, loosely covered with a thin layer of carpeting. The priests rarely break from prayer during Sunday mass, if only to welcome worshipers. As your eyes adjust, you see the church is bigger than expected with many intersecting rooms, some of which the entrance is forbidden. I couldn’t help but wonder how many centuries of secrets this place must hold.

The legends of Lalibela state that angels and men built the churches together. To this day, the exact details of their construction remain a mystery. Each one is built from solid rock top to bottom. Pictured above is the famous church of St. George. It took us a while to find it – one can only see the top when up close, at first glance it’s difficult to imagine the church is actually 50meters (150 feet) tall underground.

he price of living as you have been for centuries, is that tribal medicine is still very basic. As I walked through a market of the Hamar tribe, I noticed a lot of the women suffering from what looked like cataracts. As many as 30% of Hamar women have some vision loss after the age of 40, with 13% completely blind. A clear reminder that what we now consider an easily treatable condition was is a big problem in many parts of the world.

An Annual whipping ceremony is an integral part of the Hamar tribe’s tradition. Women dance and drink sorghum beer until they have worked themselves into a frenzy. They then taunt and shout insults at the men of the tribe until they get whipped. The whips cut through the flesh and leave life lasting scars. The more scars a woman has the more she is loved and appreciated by the men.

Erta Ale which means ‘Smoking Mountain’ and is one of only six lava lakes in the world. After a 9 hour drive from the closest village over lava fields, salt flats and sand, it is another 3 hours on foot in the dark until you finally reach the rim of the caldera. As you descend there is no trail, you have to watch every step when walking on freshly crusted lava that cracks under your feet. One false move and you can fall into an air pocket. The volcano is alive – you feel the heat, hear the roaring sounds, see the ash and sparks flying up in mini explosions. This is one of nature’s most mesmerizing and dangerous shows.

Life in Omo Valley is not all about tribal rivalry and warfare. Behind their initial serious demeanor and war body painting, the Karo people are very welcoming and friendly. On the morning of our visit, as adults were tending to livestock and brewing coffee, several boys were having a jumping contest. Even in these harsh lands sometimes it’s all about living life in the moment and having fun.

Every Sunday all the villagers around Lalibela gathers near the ancient churches for the weekly mass. A truly fascinating sight as hundreds of people adorned in yellow and while cloaks are chanting or standing still in a moment of prayer, completely ignoring the outside world and just being present.

Mursi is one of the 20 tribes living in Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia. Cattle is the main way of life for the people of this region. Not only essential for survival, the number of cattle determines the wealth and status of a village. Almost every adult tribe member, whether male or female, carries a gun. Cattle stealing, clashes over grazing land and water access disputes are quite common in the area. The Ethiopian government does little to interfere and lets the tribes sort our their problems on their own.

Ethiopian orthodox churches are known for their many types of ceremonial crosses. Each one is uniquely made and decorated and are considered sacred. As worshipers come into a church, a priest touches them with the cross to bless them and heal any ailments.

Hamar men pay very special attention to face painting and hair. They use ostrich feathers as part of their hair dress which symbolizes hunting and the domain of nature. To protect the hairdo, men always carry a wooden headrests they use for pillows.

Unlike in other tribes of the Omo Valley, Dassanech girls must be circumcised at the age of 10 in order for them to eventually marry and for the family to receive dowry. Interestingly the tribe accepts both men and women of other ethnicities as long as they will partake in the circumcising tradition.

The Danakil Desert is one of the hottest and cruelest places on earth, with temperatures rarely falling below 40-60 C (104-140 F) during the day. Salt mining has been the livelihood of the Afar people for hundreds of years and still continues to this day. Barran landscape, dust storms, unbearable heat and no water – hard to believe how anything can survive her

19/08/2015

An interesting article by the BBC looking at how human DNA may prove the legend of Queen of Sheba

The DNA of some Africans provides clues to the origins of the Queen of Sheba legend, say scientists.

19/08/2015

An interesting article by the BBC looking at how human DNA may proven the tale of Queen if Sheba
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18526428?SThisFB%3FSThisFB

24/07/2015

We always welcome initiatives that strive to foster a healthy environment and a clean, sustainable future. Here at , we believe that projects like these should be planned carefully and implemented in a way that they support the environment and the livelihoods of millions of people who depend on it.

The strategy for an eco-friendly, sustainable Ethiopian economy aims to bring the country to middle-income status by 2025 while pe***ng back emissions

13/07/2015

A surge in reckless and damaging behavior by tourists, which often goes viral on social media, has officials considering measures to limit the damage.

07/07/2015

The world is finally starting to recognise what we've always known about Ethiopia- that it is one of the most amazing places in the world with bags of potential to become a world class tourist destination. Congratulations to everyone who worked and still working tirelessly to develop the industry and of course to the wonderful people of Ethiopia who make it all possible! , ,
Olson, Brianna Metagesha, Ashenafi Getahu, Abel Mekonnen, Samrawit Fekade, Fekadu Tesfaye, Elias Alemayheu Worku, Afework Seifu, Eyob Awraris Bekele, Dawit Girma, Yohannes Feleke, Ermias Tamiru

EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON TOURISM AND TRADE is dedicated promoting European Tourism overseas , supporting national tourism organizations and supporting economic cooperation between EU and other countries.

27/06/2015

Ethiopia has begun operating the first space observatory in East Africa in an effort to promote astronomy.

13/06/2015

Here at , this is the kind of leadership we would like to see if we are to achieve a sustainable future for ourselves and the generations to follow. We are proud, Ethiopia!

Ethiopia's Climate Commitment Sets a High Bar for Developing Countries

by Kelly Levin Kelly Levin, David Rich, Eliza Northrop and Kathleen Mogelgaard
June 11, 2015
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Ethiopia has made an ambitious commitment to curb its greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030. As one of Africa’s most vulnerable nations, and the first least developed country to submit its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UNFCCC, Ethiopia communicated its plans to cut emissions below 2010 levels from 150 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) in 2010 to 145 MtCO2e in 2030. This represents a major shift, since conventional economic growth would more than double Ethiopia’s greenhouse emissions by 2030.

The INDC builds upon Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) strategy, which commits to reducing emissions and building climate resilience while achieving middle-income status before 2025, and communicates its central goal internationally.

Ethiopia’s contribution represents a 64 percent emissions reduction from business-as-usual emissions by 2030, a deeper cut than might be expected of a least developed country. Ethiopia contributes only 0.3 percent of global emissions, while 76 percent of its population lacks access to electricity and 72 percent of Ethiopians live on less than $2 a day.

In the CRGE, Ethiopia identified climate actions with the greatest mitigation potential, giving priority to steps that will yield significant co-benefits and reduce climate vulnerability.

The INDC indicates that full implementation of Ethiopia’s ambitious goals depends on expenditures of more than $150 billion by 2030 and will therefore require significant capital investment. However, Ethiopia has said it will tap domestic resources to pay for some of its commitment and will undertake analysis to determine what can be accomplished without support and what will require international support.

In addition to being ambitious, Ethiopia’s climate commitment states its goal in simple terms—reducing emissions to a certain level in a certain year—in contrast to more complex formulations from other developing countries in the past. For example, goals framed as emissions reductions below a projected business-as-usual level are much more complicated, less transparent and make it more difficult to track progress. More countries—particularly middle-income ones—should follow Ethiopia’s example of setting clear, easily-tracked, simply-stated goals.

Using an INDC to Communicate Extensive Adaptation Planning

Ethiopia’s INDC includes a section on adaptation in its climate commitment. The INDC notes the extensive adaptation planning process in Ethiopia. Ethiopia goes on to outline medium- and long-term actions to reduce vulnerability in key priority areas relating to drought, floods, and other cross-cutting interventions.

These include measures such as capacity building to cope with the spread of diseases; strengthening water resource management, and developing insurance that can support farmers and herders in times of disaster. The adaptation component also notes that to achieve its long-term goal, action will be needed to identify capacity gaps and build capacity to mainstream adaptation into all public and private development initiatives. It also notes that the response to climate change requires participation of the entire population, and notes the importance of measures to increase the status of women, the welfare of children, and the well-being of the elderly, disabled, and environmental refugees.

Transparent Communication

Ethiopia’s INDC is quite transparent. It includes many assumptions on goal design, including how the goal level was determined and sectoral and greenhouse gas coverage. The INDC would have been strengthened by more detailed explanation of how the land sector is to be accounted for, as well as how any units sold to other Parties would not be double counted with Ethiopia’s target. That being said, Ethiopia calls for robust accounting rules for both the land sector and market mechanisms to strengthen the environmental integrity of tracking INDCs.

The INDC’s description of fairness and ambition is one of the most robust and transparent submitted so far, framed in terms of emissions responsibility, capabilities (including development needs and priorities) and potential to pursue low-carbon pathways. Other countries such as Mexico and Switzerland have used similar framing, but Ethiopia’s INDC goes further in addressing a range of issues. It provides clear data to explain its contribution, including emissions per capita (both current as well as projected), percentage of population with access to electricity, and emissions reduction potential in prioritized sectors. The INDC also highlights synergies between low-carbon development and resilience actions.

While more transparency could be provided on what portion of the INDC can be achieved without international support, Ethiopia has committed to providing such details later. At this point, it is difficult to assess what emissions may result if such support is not achieved.

Overall, Ethiopia’s INDC sets an excellent example for developing countries to be ambitious in their post-2020 commitment design. It remains to be seen whether Ethiopia will be able to attract enough financial support to fully implement its plans to reach its goal. But if resources are available, Ethiopia has demonstrated its commitment towards a low-carbon economy, establishing itself as a leader that the rest of the world can follow.

Source: World Resources Institute