Cyber Ethiopia

Sof Omar Caves It is a bit of a cheat, because the Sof Omar Caves are not in the Bale National Park, but they are so close that if circumstances permit, they are worth adding to a visit to the park. A surprisingly large number of people make the pilgrimage to the remote and exotic caves in Bale zone. Although they are a bit brutal to reach, they are well worth a look. The route is spectacular. The wonderful Bale National Park, is a good jump off point to the Sof Omar caves. Past Dinsho at the Park Headquarters, you must drive 35 km to Robe, then a further 60 to Goro, and a final 45 to the caves. The road starts off quite bad and gets gradually worse.

It’s designation as all weather is, to put it politely, an exaggeration. I was there just after the rainy season and it is difficult. In the rain it would have been virtually impassable, even with a good four wheel drive.  The Weyb River at the enterance to Sof Omar Caves When you’ve gone through the struggle to arrive, you want the caves to be good. They don’t disappoint. There are 15 kilometers of cave - carved by the action of the Weyb river, which flows picturesquely through the forested scenery. The river disappears into the limestone rock where the caves begin. It is not a single cave, it is a series of semi-connected caves which skirt the edge of the river. Carved in the soft limestone by the flow of the water, the caves have rounded corridors and wonderful shapes. I took the short tour into four cavern chambers. Don’t forget flashlights - it is predictably completely dark. You have to be nimble to climb down into the caves, and there’s plenty of places where you can fall if you’re not careful. These are not the classic stalagmite or stalagtite caves, with the big pointed rocks hanging from the roof or built up from the floor. These are smooth caves, carved by the river. Our guide, Abdul Jabar Sheikh Ahmed, informed us he was the 7th generation descendant of Sheikh Hussein, who made the caves a holy shrine for Moslems. He took us into the first entranceway cavern - called Gulenta Ayo Makoo. This is a high roofed chamber, with various passageways leading to the river or deeper into the caves. It is still quite light because of entrance and the opening on the river. When it gets dark a bit further on the sound of the rushing water becomes ominous. Following a passageway leads to the second chamber - that of Jaba Bikileh - which the holy man Sheikh Sof Omar used as his prayer room. It has an altar worn smooth and shiny, presumably by the thousands of pilgrims who flock to the cave. At the suggestion of Abdul Jabar we turned off our flashlights and were thrown into a complete and very eerie darkness. Further on is a very high chamber - appropriately named Dome hall. High overhead is a dome in the rock, very similar to the basilicas’ of so many churches in Ethiopia. The final chamber I ventured to visit was a big open chamber that was used as a meeting room. Here the holy men would gather to discuss and set bylaws and to hear court cases. My son managed to scare loose a bat from the ceiling of that chamber, which flew off irritably into a deeper cave. Fortunately bats were not a problem - they weren’t obviously numerous, and there were no substantial deposits of guano. There is a lot more to see of the caves, but access is difficult. I was told that you can take a canoe down the river, which allows you to visit all the caves, but has the inconvenience of a waterfall somewhere deep in its bowels. I don’t think I’ll take that trip. The caves have been thoroughly explored by many speliological (study of caves) expeditions - Russian, Swiss, Italian, German and English to name a few. As a holy shrine, it is not surprising to find that the caves have mystical powers. Just inside the main entrance is a small room which has the remains of animals sacrificed by the devoted. Whenever people face problems, such as food shortages or wars, they come to pray for relief at the caves, and their prayers are answered. This might come in handy in this area. The caves are in the lowlands, or Kolla, a long drop from the Bale mountains. I had planned a trip in late October to miss the rains, which are normally heavy in the Bale mountains from June to early October. I was informed that the rains in these Kolla areas are normally heaviest from September to November. Fortunately for me it was dry, but this was of course seriously bad for the farmers in the area, who were watching their newly planted crops wither. There was a serious crop loss, and therefore food shortage in the area that year. We had arrived on the second day of a festival at the caves, one of three during the year. This was the festival of Sheikh Sof Omar. The other notables for the cave are Sheikh Hussein, and Ayo Makoo, the daughter of Sof Omar (some said the wife). Trying to date the time of these notables was predictably difficult - with estimates varying from ‘over 100 years’ to 800-1000 years ago. If the 7 generations of predecessors of our guide Abdul Jabar was accurate, then Sof Omar would have been around about 150 years ago. This would set the time comfortably before the extension of the Ethiopian Empire into the area a little over 100 years ago. The festivals attract many pilgrims from all over Ethiopia, although the Harar and Jimma areas were cited as major sources. Our guide estimated 200-300 ferengis visit annually, a considerable number given the difficulty of getting there. Apart from our group of 9, there was a young Mexican student who joined us - an adventurous sort travelling by local bus who was seeing the country. Before venturing on a trip to the caves, it is wise to check with officials about the security situation. Perhaps one of the best views is just in front of the cave, where a stone gate and fence have been erected. Here you look down the Weyb river, with its banks clustered with overhanging trees. Women wash clothes and children scamper in the water idyllically, in front of a limestone island carved into a large table top formation by the river. Old imams sit near the entrance to the cave, praying or chatting. In the remains of the fire from the night before was the head of a cow, the leftovers of the first feast of the Sof Omar festival. There is an attractive 500 meter walk to the cave entrance from where we parked the car in the shade of an acacia. You pass fetchingly painted tukuls, with their round brown and yellow walls underneath the thatch roofs. The people were friendly but minded their own business, which was a pleasure compared to the mob that accosts you at many sites. We had a bit of a hassle with the guide at first - who demanded that the ferengis should have a letter from the Woreda office in Goro allowing us to visit. The excellent officials from the Oromo Region and Bale Zone who were with us sorted the problem out in a few moments. I don’t know whether the letter is usually a necessity, but it is one of those silly requirements which all too frequently discourages visitors. The entrance sum was a surprisingly paltry 30 birr total for all nine of us.