Mago National Park Entrance Gate (Mursi Villages) | Tourist Attraction

Ethiopia

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Verified:
6 months ago
Altitude:
0.0 masl

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The Entrance Gate of Mago National Park (when coming from Jinka). Most People go here to Visit the Mursi Tribes and their Villages. At the Gate we paid 270 Birr pp Park Entrance Fee plus 54 Birr Car Fee.

(2023- the fees are probably slightly higher, not sure though what are the prices exactly).

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You can use your motorcycle to enter the park. All guides tell you that you can’t which is BS.
I came to the gate and the ranger was happy to let me in after I paid the entrance fee and got my receipt. You will find Wheelie Bonkers sticker on their window :)

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About visiting Mursi:
I've checked with the police, and you can visit mursi without a guide. I took a guide and didn't get to know much more than I knew. You can rent a car (unfortunately I found only cars to rent with drivers) in Jinka for 5000bir petrol (included) per day and then you can travel freely in mago park (no need for a 4wd car, the road is good for a normal car). this is a much better option than the organised tours. I will check in the place in jinka on ioverlander where you can rent a car on your own.
For those without a car or on a budget, there is a daily public bus going from jinka to hana and hana to jinka, so you can return the next day. you can jump off the bus to see a mursi village, camp somewhere there and next day wait for the returning bus to jinka(maybe even doable in one day). The bus is used just by Mursi people, which will be an authentic experience. this way you can meet true mursis, that does not want to sell you something, but become friends.

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Entrance is 270 birr pp + 54 birr car fee. Somewhere along the way there are rangers at a very unofficial looking tree checkpoint (same coordinates as comment below), they wanted 200 birr.

You don’t need a guide to drive in the park or visit a village. We checked this with the police, the ticket-guy and the rangers. The guides will obviously tell you something different.

We drove to a village, paid 200 birr pp village fee and 5 birr per person on a photo. The village we went to was more fun than expected: people were friendly and relaxed, they showed us around and there was no hassle and no aggressive behavior. Also no other tourists around. We left Jinka at 10 and no problems with drunk Mursi people.

The road is quite good and is accessible even after rain (it rained heavily for six hours the night before and the road was pretty much dry).

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The Entrance Gate of Mago National Park (when coming from Jinka). Most People go here to Visit the Mursi Tribes and their Villages. We drove here without any pre booked Guide or Tour (very uncommon in this Area...). At the Gate we paid 270 Birr pp Park Entrance Fee plus 54 Birr Car Fee. We then drove into the Park. After around 30 Kilometers (at 5.779362, 36.29732) you pass a Ranger Post where you usually have to pick up a mandatory armed Ranger for 164 Birr. However, we didn’t have a free Seat so we paid him and he staid at his Checkpoint. After some 25 Kilometers more you reach the first Mursi Villages. We stopped at one of the Villages where we already saw some other Tourist Cars parked. We immediately had to take one of the Guides (who came with another Group) because it’s not allowed to visit without Guide. We agreed on 400 Birr after some Negotiations. The Mursi looked like in the Movies and we could walk around freely (as free as it was possible between all the begging and other Tourists). But the whole Scene felt totally staged and more and more Tourist Groups arrived. The Mursi do not speak any English and constantly asked for Photos, sometimes also aggressive. They charge 5-10 Birr per Photo what is okay in our Opinion. But nobody smiled on our Photos and they always pushed another Person into the Picture to charge more. After some Minutes we left very disappointed. The Village Chief asked for another 200 Birr pp Village Entrance Fee. As we know that this Money goes to his own Pocket we said our ‚Guide‘ already paid and left without paying. You should only visit the Mursi in the early Morning (we left Jinka at 6 am) because later in the Day they often get drunk and aggressive. The Girls are not allowed to go to School because they have to pose for the Photos (and after collecting the Money give it to the Men who buy Alcohol with it). We all read about all these Controversies in Advance but decided to visit anyway. But it was disappointing and sad.

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