Bishangari, southern Ethiopia, is probably Ethiopia's best small lodge outside of the capital. Under the management and ownership of Ecolodge, Bishangari has flourished as a popular nature resort that offers a superb forest experience as well as supporting an involved community programme.
The camp was originally built in 1994 as a means to generate much needed funding for the local East Langano Nature Reserve and was, at the time, Ethiopia's first and only responsible tourism project.
The camp then fell into complete disrepair but was rescued and revived by Omar Bagersh who owns Ecolodge and has driven the project ever since overcoming considerable logistical obstacles. Omar and his team have done an exemplary job in highlighting the plight of some of Ethiopia's last remaining indigenous forests.
Bishangari is a beautiful lodge built beneath the canopy of a lakeside forest overlooking Lake Langano offering some of the best accommodation outside of Addis. The rooms are spacious and comfortable each with its own private veranda overlooking the forest or lakeshore.
Accommodation is in small individual cottages with en-suite bathrooms and running water. Activities include nature walks, swimming in a bilharzias-free lake, horse-riding and fishing.
There is a main eating area that looks out over Lake Langano and tree bar that looks into the forest behind.
The forests around Bishangari are made up of mainly podocarpus and wildfig trees, full of Colobus Monkeys and over 300 species of birds, 7 of which are endemic to Ethiopia. There are also numerous wild mammals recorded, although in low populations due to seasonal traditional hunting of the forest by local communities.
Many of the staff are employed locally from surrounding villages and the project promotes a strong community-based conservation initiative to conserve the local forests.
Activties are plentiful, including walking, fishing, swimming in the lake and horse riding. A perfect escape or break from cultural and historical tours.
Nearby is a four classroom school built by Will Jones in 1995 and is now supported by Journeys by Design through Trusts for African Schools (see The Ethical Journey) http://www.trustsforafricanschools.org/.
Bishangari was featured recently on BBC2's Long Way Down programme. Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman had, for a single night, a welcome rest on their pan-African motorbike road trip.
