Arrive at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and meet your guide at the airport they will be transferred to the hotel. If time allows you will have a city tour in Addis Ababa.

Overnight: Hotel

Drive Hawassa en route visit Rift Valley Lakes. Hawassa is one of Ethiopia's most beautiful lakes and is rich in bird life. Among those Pygmy Goose, Brown Snake Eagle, Grey Kestral, Spotted Creeper, African Firefinch, Green-backed Honeyguide, Blue-headed Coucal, Red-breasted Wryneck, Malakite King Fisher, Spur-winged Plover, Black Forest we can expect to see Saddlebill and Maribou Storks, Bruce's Green Pigeon. There are hippos in the lake and Colobus and Cervet monkeys in the gardens of the lakeside hotels.

Overnight: Hotel

Drive to Dinsho. You will also marvel at the wildlife among them Klipspringer, Serval, Bushpig, Giant Forest Hog, Grey Duiker, and Colobus Monkey.

Overnight: Hotel

This morning we drive to Dinsho, the gateway to the fabled Bale Mountains, which reaches an altitude of around 14,000 feet (4,500 meters). Here we spend the next two days birding varied habitats for such sought-after species as Abyssinian Owl, Cape (Mackinder’s) Eagle-Owl (the largest of three subspecies), African Wood Owl, Wattled Ibis, Chestnut-naped Spurfowl,
Moorland Francolin, Wattled Crane, Red-billed Chough, White-backed Black Tit, Abyssinian Catbird, African Emerald Cuckoo, Abyssinian Crimsonwing, and, with luck, Golden Eagle, as well as a long list of other birds. Interesting mammals here include Mountain Nyala, Klipspringer, Menelik’s Bushbuck, Bohor Reedbuck, and others. The days in this area are also a botanical treat, with vegetation ranging from Hagenia-dominated forest to giant Erica woods to high-altitude moorlands, sometimes with fabulous giant lobelias.

In the adjacent Harenna Forest, it might be possible to spot some star birds like Brown Parisoma, Ayres’s Hawk-Eagle, African Emerald Cuckoo, Abyssinian Ground Thrush, Cinnamon Bracken Warbler, Rüppell’s and White-browed Robin-Chats, Abyssinian Crimsonwing, and Slender-billed Starling, or even a flock of migrating European Bee-eaters.

Overnight: Hotel

You will be driving on Africa’s highest road, passing close to the summit of Ethiopia’s second-highest mountain. Here on the Sanetti Plateau, an island of tundra in the tropics, the habitat is classified as “Afro-alpine moorland”, characterized by a fascinating range of unique plants, including giant lobelias, which tower like monolithic giants over the rich tussock grasslands, and extensive cushions of yellow everlasting flowers. The grasslands are estimated to support an incredible biomass of 8,800 pounds (3,990 kilograms) of rodents per hectare! This obviously attracts a rich array of raptors, and we should see the Steppe and Golden Eagles, Augur Buzzard, and the elegant Pallid Harrier circling over this verdant floral sea. They share this abundant food source with the plateau’s most celebrated resident, the Ethiopian Wolf, crowned with the unenviable title of “the world’s rarest canid”. Watching these vibrantly colored animals exhibiting their hunting prowess while pouncing on Giant Mole Rats is surely among Africa’s greatest wildlife experiences. The plateau also holds the only Afrotropical breeding populations of Ruddy Shelduck, Golden Eagle, and Red-billed Chough. We will also search for Black Stork, Wattled Ibis, Rouget’s Rail (particularly common and confiding here), the endemic Blue-winged Goose, Spot-breasted Lapwing, Wattled Crane, Thekla’s Lark, migratory flocks of Red-throated Pipit, Abyssinian Longclaw, Rusty-breasted Wheatear, the dumpy Moorland Chat, and flocks of the endemic Ethiopian Siskin.

Overnight: Hotel

Early in the morning, you will start driving back to Addis Ababa. In the evening attend the farewell dinner in the best traditional restaurant and then depart to your final destination.

Departure.