Ten Unknown Treks

Backpacker.com has put together an excellent list of ten undiscovered treks, scouring the globe to find the best long distance hiking trails that have yet to come up on the radar for most backpackers.

The list has a little something for everyone, and offers great suggestions on five continents, including several in Europe, Australia, South America, Asia and Africa. Some of the great trails making the list include the Pyrenees Traverse in France, which offers great backcountry hiking all day with comfortable and quaint inns to stay in each night. Heading to Nepal you'll find the Rolwaling to Khumbu circuit, a 20-day hike that offers a fraction of the hikers in the Khumbu Valley, while still staying the shadow of Everest itself, and travel to Ethiopia to trek the Simien Mountains, which offer an 8 day, 86-mile route that blends culture, wildlife and amazing scenery in one.

The article says that you should get to these treks before everyone else does. They're still off the beaten path (pun fully intended!) for the vast majority and as such, you'll likely have the trail to yourself, at least for now. That'll probably change now that Backpacker has tipped us all off, but regardless, these each look like amazing treks.

My friend Colm, who I did Kilimanjaro with a few years back, did the Simien trek i Ethiopia last year, and had nothing but great things to say about the experience. From the sounds of things, it lives up to Backpacker's description and then some. While Kili has become all the rage, and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco continue to draw hikers, the Simians remain a bit of a mystery, still untamed and wild. Go quickly!

John Rowe | The Donga

Photo © John Rowe-All Rights Reserved

For a complete change of pace, here's an Ethiopian feature.

The Donga  (also called Saginay) is the stick-fight practiced by the Suri, a tribe in the Omo Valley. The Suri  adopt stick fighting - which is a traditional way for young men to impress girls. The often bloody fight is a demonstration of bravery, and underscores the men's desire to become cattle warriors.

Generally, stick fighting is practiced so young men can find wives. The ideal time to stick fight is just after it rains, and involves various Suri villages. With 20 to 30 people on each side, the stick fights can be extremely dangerous despite having referees to make sure that rules are followed. It's said that the fights have recently led to fights with guns, in which people have been wounded.

Sometimes when a young man has a dispute over a woman, he challenges his rival to a stick fight. His village joins him by starting the age-old ritual by singing, and carrying their fighting sticks that are carved in the shapes of penises (of course).

The Donga is a gallery of incredibly compelling monochrome photographs of this ritualistic fight by photographer John Rowe.

John Rowe is a photographer and film maker who first trained at the US Navy School of Photography when he was 18 years old. He's also a successful businessman who has founded and managed companies which develop software and digital media for the entertainment industry.

He has also devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy and financial assistance to humanitarian work in Africa. He is also helping to save babies born in the Omo Valley from the brutal tradition of Mingi. Mingi is a tradition practiced for many generations by tribes of the Omo Valley like the Kara, labels certain children as “cursed.”

For more on John's efforts on this worthwhile cause, drop by PetaPixel's post on the subject.

Ken Hermann | Beauty of Omo Valley

Photo © Ken Hermann - All Rights Reserved

I'm certainly glad to have photographed the Omo Valley in 2004 at a time when the influx of tourists and thrill-seeking photographers was considerable less than what it is now. What I've often seen coming out of the cradle of humankind (as the Omo Valley is often called) has been overworked photographs, with its tribespeople over made-up and fetishized by having them wear incongruous head gear and unnatural accessories.

So a trace of skepticism accompanied my initial look at Ken Hermann's Beauty of Omo Valley; fully expecting to see the same style of photography...but I was pleasantly surprised. No fetishized or Disney-fied versions of these handsome people in this gallery...just beautiful photographs made of equally beautiful people. While obviously staged with care, using paraphernalia such as umbrellas, reflectors and flashes, and photographed with digital Phase One 654 camera, the photographs are simple, and reflect Omo Valley people without the overbearing artifices used by other photographers.

Ken Hermann is based in Copenhagen, and works for a diverse range of clients including leading brands, agencies and media corporations. With a degree in advertising photography, Ken's work was published by a number of magazines and exhibited around the world. One of his projects made him the winner of Hasselblad Masters 2012.

According to an interview with the German GEO magazine, Ken describes that tourism to the Omo Valley has significantly increased over the past few years, and with the improved infrastructure comes the constant tour buses to villages with people jumping out, making photos, jumping back, and driving to the next villages.

For a back story kind of look into Ken Hermann's Omo Valley photo shoots, view the short video below:

Omo Child | Mingi

"I am one of the victims of mingi. Last year my daughter was declared teeth mingi because her teeth showed from the top first instead of the bottom. In my mind it was unthinkable to drown my own child in the river. I swore to God no one would kill my own flesh and blood. I will be the first Kara man to stand up to the elders." -Hylo Ari 

Mingi is the traditional belief among the Karo and Hamar tribes in southern Ethiopia that adults and children with physical abnormalities are ritually impure, and some of them believe evil spirits or a “curse” will bring ill fortune to their villages if Mingi children are not killed. Mandated by the tribes' elders, the afflicted child will be left alone in the bush without food and water, or will be drowned in  rivers.

Filmed over a five year period, the film makers of Omo Child followed Lale Labuko, a young educated man from the Karo tribe and his relentless journey with the people of his tribe as they attempt to change an ancient practice. Labuko, a 2013 National Geographic Emerging Explorer, learned about the practice of Mingi and how he made it his life mission to end ritual infanticide in his tribe's culture.

Omo Child: The River and the Bush has been selected for the DC Independent Film Festival and will premiere February 25th, opening night of the festival.

Matilda Temperley | Omo Valley

A few years ago,  Matilda Temperley traveled to Ethiopia's Omo Valley with a portable studio to, as she says it, to "isolate the subjects from their surroundings, extracting the individual from his or her contextual backgrounds so as to bring their gaze, unmediated, into the image."

The Omo valley is at a crossroad of cultures and civilizations and many tribal groups, such as the Mursi, Suri, Ebore and others live around the South Sudanese, Ethiopian and Kenyan borders. These tribes have developed their own unique styles of self decoration to differentiate themselves from their neighbors. The Mursi women, as an example, have their lower teeth removed and ceramic plates inserted that stretch the lips.

"Tribal porn", as some correctly describe it,  is what fuels the gradual and steady increase in the tour groups, and there's been an increasing stream of westerners into the valley in the recent years. Tourist cash in making its way into the tribal regions, and is polluting their cultures. The fashions in the more accessible Omo Valley villages are changing, with tribes people adorning themselves with as much accessories as they can find in order to beg for photos.

It's regrettable and very sad to see these proud Omo Valley inhabitants being encouraged by many unscrupulous tour agents, tourists and photographers to do so, at the risk of losing their identity and age-old cultures.

The Ethiopian government's actions are also a contributing factor. The  forthcoming hydroelectric Gibe III dam is expected to cause potential humanitarian disaster for the region's 500,000 inhabitants. The dam will allow Ethiopia to become a major energy exporter, but will also allow for large-scale commercial farming through irrigated agriculture along the banks of the Omo. Another change in the ways of life for the tribes of the Omo Valley.

Matilda Temperley is a British photographer, who had career in tropical infectious diseases before taking up photography. She is known for her stylised portraiture of marginalised societies. 

Anthony Pappone | Ethiopia's Omo Valley

Photo © Anthony Pappone-All Rights Reserved

"If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things." - Sebastiao Salgado 

Readers and followers of my blog know of my distaste for the current spate of photographs that depict indigenous people who are encouraged (monetarily or otherwise) to wear decorative accessories that are not natural to them. Photographers who travel to the Omo Valley are particular susceptible to this 'disease', and are insensitive (but rarely unaware) to the impact transforming members of the various Omo Valley tribes into fashion models with outlandish headgear and accessories.

The exploitation of these tribes by some photographers, travelers and tourists, who view them as nothing but beautiful displays, continues despite the effort of well-intentioned travel companies.

Anthony Pappone's Portraits in The Omo Valley is certainly not one of these insensitive exploitative photographs. His photographs of Omo Valley tribal members are beautiful and simple. There is no artificiality in his portraits, nor is there accessories intended to dupe the viewers. The Omo Valley people are beautiful in their simplicity, and Anthony's photographs prove to us that there is no need for deceit in the representation of these people.

Anthony Pappone is an Italian photographer specializing in travel, festival, portrait, tribes and ceremony photography around the world. Just a traveler before becoming a photographer, he caught the bug during a festival in Ladakh, and he started on a career of following festivals and religious ceremonies wherever these occurred. From Ethiopia to Nagaland, from West Africa's Benin, Ghana, Mali to Yemen...he documented festivals and everyday life with his wide angle lenses.

Christian Bobst | Meskel in Lalibela

Photo © Christian Bobst-All Rights Reserved

Meskel is an annual religious holiday in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Helena (Saint Helena) in the fourth century. It  is celebrated for two days beginning September 26th, and commemorates the legend that in the year 326, Queen Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, discovered the cross upon which Christ was crucified.

It is in Lalibela, one of Ethiopia's most religious towns, that Christian Bobst photographed the ceremonies and rituals observing this fascinating religious festival. During the ceremony, a priest rubs the pilgrims with the holy Lalibela Cross to heal diseases or drive out devils of the bodies of the believers. The Lalibela Cross is thought to date to the 12th century and is considered one of Ethiopia's most precious religious and historical heirlooms.

Christian tells me he used two Fuji X-T1 camera bodies and prime lenses between 14mm to 35mm, as well as using the cameras' wi-fi capabilities to capture high angle shots. He also appreciated the lightness in weight,  smaller size and the retro look of the Fujis.

He also tells me that during the ceremony, one of the pilgrims saw the pictures on the screen of Christian's iPhone while taking the high angle shots on the X-T1 he had perched on a monopod. The pilgrim liked the photographs so much that he persuaded the presiding priest to allow Christian to photograph right in the center of the crowd.

Christian Bobst is a Swiss documentary photographer who originally studied graphic design. For almost 15 years, he worked for advertising agencies like Young & Rubicam/Switzerland and Jung von Matt/Germany as an Art- and Creative Director, before deciding to move on into documentary photography in 2010.  He now works as a freelance photographer, and is a member of 13 Photo in Zürich.