Turmi- Travel Tips

What to See, How to Plan & Tours

Turmi is a small market town in southwestern Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley, situated at around 925 m elevation in the Hamer District of the South Ethiopia Regional State. It serves as the cultural heartland of the Hamer tribe, known for their distinctive clay‑smeared hairstyles, bead‑studded attire and the dramatic "bull‑jumping" ceremony—a rite of passage traditionally held on Monday afternoons at the weekly market. The town's Monday market draws Hamer, Karo, Benna and Ari communities, offering a vivid display of body‑painting, carved gourds, honey, coffee and pottery as residents barter and socialize amid dusty lanes. Turmi's setting—amid savannah plains and fragile red‑clay villages—offers insight into traditional agro‑pastoral lifeways and tribal aesthetics that have persisted since before Ethiopia's modern development era.