Rising in the highlands south- west of Addis Ababa, the Omo River courses south for Almost 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) but never reaches the sea. It is the sole feeder of Lake Turkana, East Africa Fourth Largest lake, which the river entries just above the Kenyan border.

As it tumbles off the escarpment the Omo passes from alpine environment and rain forest on into savannah country- and finally into searing desert lands. Through the millennia its flood –swollen waters have lands. Through the millennia its flood-swollen water have cut stupendous gorges wild game roam in abundance on both banks while strange and colorful birds dart in and out of the lush Vegetation.

Reckoned by enthusiasts to be one of African premier location for White Water River rafting its early fury takes it though gorges hundreds of meters deep and over flesh and the huge shapes of crocodile and hippo.

On the final leg of its journey south to Turkana, the Omo runs between kefa and Gamo Gofa Regions it is here that Ethiopia largest nature sanctuary the Omo National park – one of the richest in spectacle and game and yet one of the least vested areas in East and central Africa – is located. Another sanctuary the Mago National Park has been established on the eastern bank of the river: a land of endless distant horizons.

Subsequent research in distance in Ethiopia carried out the nearby valley south, has led to the discovery of numerous stone tools, and fossils though to be around 2.5 million years old.