The first question everyone make himself when looking the information provided by the Spanish travel agencies is: Why the Ethiopian tour is the most expensive one? The answer we usually got was that the country has no infrastructure, so the organization of the tours is very difficult and consequently expensive. Well, let me say that it seems logical, but in reality the responsability for these high prices are of both the local and Spanish tour operators, because their prices are simply irrealistic.See the table below for information related to the travel, we will also try to give a summary of the prices we found and some advices regarding how to obtain reasonable prices

We flew Barcelona to Addis with Alitalia, it costed 109.000 Pts per person. We recommend to check every possibility, because the companies' prices may vary a lot . When you come back you must pay 20 USD as a airport taxes (payable only in USD). If you want to go when everybody go, of course you will pay even more.

The standard tour includes the North and sometimes also the South, its durations is about four weeks. In Spain, almost all of the offers concentrate in our summer months (July and August), because it is usually our holidays period, but it is the worst moment to travel to Ethiopia because it is the wet season, it is simply nonsense to speak about summer and winter in a country located so close to the Ecuator. The price is about 450.000 ESP (2700 USD) per person, the groups are of four people at least, some agencies only offer the trip if the group is bigger than 12  people. You have to keep in mind what is included and what is not, it is logical that dinks are not included, but other expenses should be. Hotels out of Addis should ever be the best available, because in the South they are quite limited. Generaly speaking, the Spanish agencies offer very good services and very interesting tours, but the price is usually high. We didn't find any tour focused in the South of Ethiopia, even less at the time we travelled, except if they would have organize an special one to us, and this was extremely expensive.

After comparing the prices of our local agencies whith the ones offered for them by the local agencies, we concluded they get a lot of money, about  80.000 ESP (485 USD) per person for a travel like ours,  I mean three or four people and a tailor-made tour. This figures we have obtained by comparing the price offered for an specific tour by an Ethiopian agency and the one offered by its representative in Spain, so at least the order of magnitude is correct. And as more people is travelling together, bigger is the benefit. This is the price you will have to pay if you don't want to worry about anything and for the confidence all the things will go correctly, because local agencies can play with a single traveller but not whith a foreign organization which can sent them many tourist every year.

What we found simply ridiculous was the note saying in some of the catalogs "individual supplement: 50.000 pts"  (300 USD). If you take into account that the camping has no supplement, and that a double room in a good hotel cost 30-50 birr para turistas, (unas 4-6 USD), in our case (7 days of camping site and 10 days hotel) this means a extra cost of about 5000 ESP (30 USD), 10 times that they ask for.

The local agencies we contacted had three different behaviour:

• One of them sent us irrealistic prices, even more expensive than the prices offered by the Spanish agencies. We found a group of retired germans travelling whith them. We are talking about Etiophian Experienced Travel, the former official agency during the socialism, NTO=National Tourist Office.
• Some others sent to us the address of their representatives in Spain, but we already knew them (and their offers). Anyway, after asking again they gave us the prices and tours, as we have already explained this allowed us to calculate the gross benefit the Spanish agencies get.
• We finally contacted somethig that is between a local agency and a "pure guide": a company that has cars to hire but also the official permission to carry tourist. This may seem a joke, but it is not, the police stopped us many times asking for this permission, we found some tourist trapped because of this affair. os. Some advice: be careful if you hire a car on your own way. This way we got something between that would be reasonable according to the country's level of life and the astronomic offers, but also could contract the services of a guide who was strongly recommended by other Spanish traveller .

Hiring a 4WD was very-very expensive in Ethiopia at this moment. there is not a good offer of such vehicles, so the prices are irrealistic. Hiring a 4WD cost at least  100 USD per day (aprox. 800 birr), that means 16.500 ESP/day. It is possible to find somethig for 80 USD/día, but whithout permissions, this is dangerous if you travel near to the border (like us, near the Kenyian border). Keep this in mind. The one we hired costed us 100 USD per day, a better one costed 120-150 USD per day, a brand new one about 200 USD per day (!)..

We don't know if the North is different, but for the South the 4WD is strictly necessary. When you leave Addis the National Road is very bad, in the South the gravel roads are terrible and sometimes impossible (when it rains) even whith a 4WD. It should be diesel, because there are few petrol stations in the South and thus the fuel is carried in jerrycans; imagine what can happen carrying 6 jerrycans full of benzine, on top of the 4WD, under the Ethiopian summer (or even winter) sun. If there is an accident, you have a bomb on top of you.

It is worthless not to go to the best hotels in Ethiopia, a double room cost about 30-50 birr. For Ethiopian people is even cheaper. Exception are the Rift Valley Hotel, in Shashemene, excelent for 120 birr the double room, and the best of all in Nazreth for 190 birr the double, luxury hotels in local terms.

The standar is very low, the best hotel is sistematically the newer one, mainly because of the waste water disposal. The usual system collapse after one or two years, and can't be cleaned longer. Imagine the odour of the WC. As an example, in Jinka all the three hotels located near the "airport" cost the same price, 30 birr a double room per night, but they are so different in quality that you can't believe that the prices are the same. So reserve the best in advance, if you can (Goh Hotel, at least in 1999).

The price of the fuel changes depending on the distancen to Addis: it is cheaper in the capital town, although it is always cheap according to European standards. In Addis it costed 1.5 birr per liter, in Arbaminch 1.8, in Jinka costed 3 because we had to buy it in the black marker (the official station was out of fuel). And this is the official price, you won't be overcharged because you are foreigners.

In the South you can eat in the best restaurants for less than 20 birr per person. If you go to a popular restaurant, you will pay half this price. The supermarket (only in big cities) is very expensive, because they have only European products and you will pay for the transport. One beer cost 3-6 birr, Ambo water 3-5. Turist pay a little bit more, but it is not only legal but almost official. Be careful whith the payments, check the change everywhere.
 

You have to pay the people to take photographs. To simplify the explanation, you will have to pay one birr to any single person who is appearing in the photograph, except for the Karo and the Mursi, the most spectacular and less civilizated, they ask 2 birr per person after some negociation. For these two tribes, do not demonstrate the desire of taking them photographs when you arrive there, simply hide the cameras, wait and see. Try to negociate whith the boss, if your guide do this for you will be better. Give some extra money at the end of the session to the "President" of the Mursi (aprox. 10 birr), the giving person should be the one who negociated the price; this is very important because him is the responsible of his people being not agressive: this is basic because they are armed, hungry and you are 100 kms far from the (let me say) the closest civilizated village. You also can have bad look if there is any fool turist paying a lot of money for a single photograph (some US citizen paid up to 100 USD per photo!!), if this occours simply forget taking photographs that day.

To get the best for your money, you should ask for a ceremony organised for you. You are allowed to take as many photographs as you want during the ceremony, and you also will see a very interesting act. It is not a false ceremony for turists only. The help of your guide will be very important, because someone has to talk to the boss in his tongue. As for the photograph, the first price is sistematically high. We saw two ceremonies, the Hamer in Turmi (we paid 300 birr, 100 per person, after the guide had talked a lot whith the organiser). It was really interesting, we had to see it in the morning because of the rain we had the two nights before, but if was quite authentic. We saw the dancing, the cow's jumping and the cow's blood drinking. The other ceremony was the Geleb, we passed through their village and our local guide asked for the ceremony, they got out of their huts (the sun was high and the temperature about 35ºC on the shadow); it was very good and realistic, although the circumstances, in an incredible landscape. The guide told us that if there would have been enough food, they wouldn't have danced; bad loock for them and good for us; we paid 50 birr. We hadn't any chance whith the Karo, because they had gone to the field because of the rain,  and almost everybody was out, anyway the people who remained there was so spectacular that it was a worth to take photographs of the individuals alone.

That you buy depends on your interest, and also depends on the the mood of the owner of the object. There aren't many things for buying in the South. Of course there are no souvenir shops! You can buy a small wooden chair (4-5 birr local price, 15 birr faranji price, don't pay more), pumpkins (10 birr local price and 15 birr faranji price), half pumpking used as a helmet of plate (3-4 birr), beetle wing collars (1 birr), kenian jiraffe necklaces (1 birr), and some other item you may see in the markets, as for example wooden kalashnikovs. There is some local wooden artwork in Konso, like nice vases (35-40 birr) and simple toys (2-3 birr), if you stop there you will see thousands.  In Arbaminch you may find ceramics, textiles and forniture, it is worth to see how they made the ceramic: they turn, not the jar! . You can find injera baskets in Addis, false ols icons they pretend having been made in Lalibela and Axum, and not much more, in Addis you should pay at least the third of their first price.

After our travel we can some advices, it is just the main aim of these pages:

• If you contact whith a local agency, the best solution may be: hire the 4WD, the guide and the driver, and pay yourself for the rest of the expenses, including the ones of the guide and the driver, of course. The prices shoul be about 100 USD per day for the 4WD (or more if you want a better car, but there aren't many possibilities), plus 20 USD per day for the guide and 10 USD per day for the driver. If you need a coocker, you shoul reckon 10 USD per day more, and the correspondent expenses; the coocker is really not necessary if you are 2 or 3 people, but if you are more it is a good idea because he will remain in the campsite and save time preparing all the foodstuff.
• An alternative solution would be to negociate the 4WD+guide+driver according to the previous prices, and to agree whith an "all included" package (transfer to the airport, hotels, non alcoholic beverages, fuel, permissions). This was our choice, we paid  30 USD per person per day. This may loock reasonable from an European point of view, but it is really expensive in Ethiopia, we think you can get it for 20 USD per person per day, and they have still an important profit, keep in mind that the car is very expensive and you are paying well to the people, according to their standards. For example, the salary of an engineer we met in the South was 400 birr per month (50 USD), although it would be more in the North, anyway these advices are valid in the South, we haven't travelled to the North.
• As we have commented before, an "all included package" costs 70-75 USD per person per day, booked in Spain. This is almost the same than the final price we got, we paid 72 USD per person per day, but it really was all included and was tailor-made, a very important advantage..
• The prices the truck drivers ask for a trip to the Mursi are more than absurd. If you need something, you will pay a lot, this is their logic and it works. Better don't imagine paying 300 birr per person for a trip to the Mago Park to see the Mursi, you alone withouth guide, passing through a tse-tse fly infected area, under the sun, etc. Well, we are not that kind of traveller, but if in any part of the world this is nonsense it is there.