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Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (5)

Adventures with Kingsley Holgate (5)

Date: 2016-04-29
Our hardy Land Rover adventurers are still on their yearlong journey to follow the entire Great African Rift Valley, a story best told from the scribbles in Kingsley's sweat-stained expedition journals

The 'badlands' of Ethiopia's South Omo region are a wild, untamed area that is home to some 30 distinct ethno-linguistic groupings, some numbering fewer than 1000 people. Intertribal fighting and cattle wars are common place. 'You can buy an AK47 for two head of cattle, the guns are smuggled across from South Sudan', says Adi, our interpreter.

One Landy behind the other In thick bush near the Mago River we surprise a group of Bana tribesman armed to the teeth with AK47's. Adi ascertains that they are on the warpath searching for two of their fellow tribesmen who have been abducted by the warlike Mursi.

At the Mursi village you can cut the atmosphere with a knife. The Bana war party are demanding the return of their comrades. I get pulled into the circle. The young bloods finger their AK47's, the elders mumble amongst themselves. The expedition team start positioning the Land Rovers for a quick getaway. We need to think fast. In Zulu I shout to my son Ross: "Do we have enough bucks to buy a mbuzi!" He nods and soon there's a goat for slaughter. The situation is diffused. There's a "Peace Accord in the bush". The Bana captives are released.

The Mursi women have a strange practice of inserting decorated circular clay plates into their lower lip. Some lip loops are so distended that they can even pull them over their heads. The larger the lip plate the greater her bride price - a real whopper can fetch up to 50 head of cattle - Will keep you posted.