Limalimo Lodge

The 15 Best African Safaris to Add to Your Bucket List | Vogue

"Perched atop a dramatic escarpment in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains National Park, where jagged mountain peaks meet a verdant valley, Limalimo Lodge is a community-focused project that offers a rare glimpse into the region’s wilderness. With the support of the African Wildlife Foundation, founders and mountain guides Shiferaw Asrat and Meles Yemata opened the lodge in 2016, with a vision of showcasing the beauty of the national park while also benefiting the households and communities within the park boundaries through tourism. The result is a sustainable and low-impact design consisting of 14 rooms made from rammed earth, wood, and thatch, each surrounded by fragrant juniper, olive, and acacia trees. The lodge employs local staff and sources much of its produce from nearby areas, ensuring that the community thrives alongside conservation efforts. With regional residents and experts as your guides, you can enjoy walking treks across cliffs where groups of 200 or more gelada monkeys graze in vast troops, while lammergeiers wheel overhead, dropping bones to crack them on the rocks. If you’re lucky, you can even spot a horned Walia Ibex, Ethiopian wolf, leopard, or hyena." - Michaela Trimble