Ethiopia holiday, tailormade reviewed by Teresa Winchester
Seeing the bull jumping and visiting the Hamer village to watch them dance and it was not a touristy event. Also drawing one of the women in the Murcii village.
And sharing our picnic with the ravens in the Simien mountains.
Don't encourage the children who will certainly beg by giving them ANYTHING. Sweets, pens,books or money. Do not encourage begging. If you want to give something then entrust someone you really trust with some money to buy something necessary such as shoes.
Beware of youths who want you to buy them a book to help with their studies. It will be expensive and inevitably sold back to the shopkeeper and the profits shared.
Be careful of taking too much luggage if you have internal flights. Contrary to what we were told at Heathrow our hand luggage was not weighed by the way.
It's not true that you have to eat with your hands all the time. In fact at all.
Don't be afraid of the tribal people. They are fascinating. Walk around the village before you get out your camera so that you have a look round. Don't give more than 5 bir for a photo.
We were advised by a group of Norwegian doctors that there's no malaria in the north and it wasn't necessary to take malarone until you go to the south.
Hopefully entrance fees etc will filter down to everyone.
Our guide in the Simien mountains was very careful to ensure that we didn't impact on the wildlife.
Tourism creates jobs and increases investment but it's difficult otherwise to see the benefits to the country apart from the fact that the experience for us brings greater understanding of the people and their environment.
We had a wonderful time. Eskinder was brilliant and gave us so much of his time. Fantastic guide and driver for 7 days in the south.
We loved the contrast of the north and the south. Such a beautiful country.
An excellent trip, fascinating and well organised which I would recommend to anyone wanting to see Ethiopia. And we felt perfectly safe!
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