8 Days Simien Mountain Trekking

In the morning flight takes you to Gonder A warm welcome to the old mountain capital of Gonder and transfer to your hotel. Gonder has a rich history with its beautiful and strategic mountain setting, the 17th-century capital was once the crossroads of several major caravan routes and was also occupied by the Italians during World War 2. The Art Deco buildings surrounding the Royal enclosure with its medieval castles and churches are a reminder of this heritage. This afternoon, explore Gonder’s castle and the churches of Debra berhan silassie with its iconic ceiling of a painted angel.

Drive to Gonder early in the morning to Debark the place where the park headquarter is situated where we need to spend about one hour to do entrance fees and pick the scout plus to have tea and coffee before leaving to the mountain, then keep on driving to the place where called Machibiny and start the introductory walk to the first campsite Sankaber for 3-4 hours along the plateau of the mountain far from the edge of mountain and overnight at Sankaber. You will encounter Gelada Baboon along this hike.

We follow the northern escarpment eastwards before we descend a little into the Kaba valley. After that, we climb up before we reach Gich Abyss and continue over a narrow ridge to a cliff where we have a spectacular view of the abyss towards the Simien foothills. We also find a large waterfall here, where the Jinbar River pluges 500m into the abyss. We proceed for about two hours and have lunch we walk through fields of barley before we arrive at the idyllic village of Gich. Here we can enjoy a traditional coffee ceremony in one of the huts and learn more about local farm life. From Gich village it is a short walk to Gich camp which is a good area to look for Lammergier and Thich billed Raven.

Walk from Gich camp we stroll through endless fields of Giant Lobelia before we reach the towering cliff’s of Imet- Gogo (3926m). Here we will spend some time absorbing the superb views over the mountain valleys below and the strange-shaped domes in the distance, which we will see up close at the end of the trip. After that, we descend into the Jinbahir Rift Valley. In this way, we get a different perspective of Imet Gogo and the volcanic landscape, where it looks like big chunks of mountains have been blown away.

The trails follows the edge of the escarpment, wich is completely vertical here for several hundred metres.  We climb to the summit of 4070m where we will have lunch. After lunch we descend to Chennek for about two hours along a steep trail. From chennek camp there are spectacular views in all directions. Sit down on a bench at the escarpment and try to spot Walia Ibex in the late afternoon and early morning. Sometimes Walia Ibex visit the edges of the campsite.

On this day the character of the trek is more uphill and downhill. It is a bit tough while climbing up and easier while descend back but it is totally far from sheer cliffs. On this trip, from the top of Mt. Buhawit(4430m), we will have the opportunities to see the highest mountain peak in the entire country called Ras-Dejen (4543m) as well as the decent views of Mt.Buwahit itself. It takes an approximate time of 5 -6 hours to cover both ways and drive back to Gondar for about 5 hours.

Fly to the UNESCO world Heritage Site of Lalibela – the Jerusalem of Ethiopia, and Africa’s own ‘petra’. In a fitting finale to your Ethiopia adventure, explore the monolithic red- hued churches incredibily carved in to the rock. Your guide will lead you through the network of crevices and tunnels linking each of the churches. The church are still in use today.

Today your guide take you to the eastern group of rock hewn churches: smaller in size, these are no less impressive, with intricate carvings and many dark tunnels to explore! Travel further afield to the Nakutelab rock-hewn church, built into the side of a hill in a natural cave. The afternoon culminates in a visit to a private home to participate in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

The end of the visit will be flight back to our capital town Addis Ababa and farewell dinner at one of the Ethiopian traditional hotel then transfer to the airport to back home.