I joined a private 11 day tour of northern Ethiopia for a group of 4 people organised by a friend (2 from UK and 2 from HK). Our tour included a 9 day drive in a clean and comfortable landcruiser from Bahir Dar to Gondar to Simien Mountains to Axum to Gheralta Mountains and to Lalibela.

I appreciated the incredible personal and professional service from Taddese Atlaw (managing director) before and during the tour. Taddese responded promptly, courteously and patiently to my numerous questions via email about domestic flights, payment terms, accommodation facilities, and possible tour extensions. He also kept in touch a couple of times to check if the tour was going well and was flexible to accommodate additional requests during the tour. It was nice to meet Taddese face to face on the last day at the traditional dinner and dance show before we departed Ethiopia with gifts of Tarara coffee and a pretty cotton scarf.

Our driver (Yacob) and local guides at various destinations were friendly, experienced, helpful and were happy to share their culture, history, religion and knowledge with us including translating my Q&As with the priests and monks :)

My highlights of the tour were trekking to see Gelada monkeys at Simien mountains, trekking upwards to rock hewn churches of Abuna Yemata, Maryam and Daniel Korkor in the Tigray region, visiting Lalibela churches and my conversations with the priests and monks about their faith and experiences. The Ethiopian Orthodox church - their history, practices and rock hewn buildings were fascinating.

Suggestions for consideration: (1) Porter fees to assist in treks in Tigray region could be included in the tour package or negotiated upfront on behalf of clients. (2) Rooms without air-conditioning could have a fan for circulation and to blow mosquitoes away (if any).

Overall, I would highly recommend SET to organise your Ethiopian adventure. Their tour package was competitively priced with exceptional service.

What an experience, you can’t imagine what a splendid surprise this trip was, in all his senses.
For this trip we (me and my partner) got a Toyota SUV (in very good shape), with driver (also in good shape), at our disposal and drove about 3000 km around in the north and central part of Ethiopia.
The nice thing of this trip was that in each location there was a local guide at our disposal that guided us true the places, cities, cultural monuments, unique spots of nature and he informed us about all points of interest of that specific place.
This trip was a shock on different levels. We didn’t know what a rich history this country and his population had and this in very different domains like religion, culture, architecture and nature.