| I just came back from a 4 day trip to Bale. The road from Shashemene to Goba is now perfect, really easy to get to Bale quickly from Addis. We stayed at Goba Wabe Shebelle hotel. Twin is 455 birr, a single a 409 birr (meaning a queen size bed, two people can stay in it for that price), a salon (extra big double bed, large bathroom and a living room) is 607 birr. All rooms include a big breakfast (fresh papaya juice, toast butter jam and a choice of eggs or porridge and a hot drink). Rooms are old, and the first night in the twin, there were fleas in one of the beds. The service is good, we changed to a different room the second night. We visited the lodge at Dinsho where the beds were unmade, it seemed dirty and pretty deserted. Price for a double room was 200 birr. We had a great guide from the park, called Muzeyen, who is really great at wolf spotting( we say 10 wolves in 2 days) and birds (we saw lots of endemic birds) Guide prices are 150 birr per day if you stay in Dinsho (and the guide can sleep at home) or 170 birr if he needs to sleep in another town or at a campsite. Bale mountains national park is amazingly beautiful, if there were more tourists coming, probably the accommodation would improve. Liza D |
Bradt Ethiopia Travel News 
Me and my ex-girlfriend were at Bale National Park in may 2008. It’s indeed beautifull. It’s one of the places in Ethiopia to see wildlife. It consists of several different habitats. Around Dinsho there is a forest with a moderate climate. There are a lot of mountain nyala’s, reedbucks, menelik bushbuck and warthog there. Higher is the Sanetti plateau, which is a kind of open afro-montane tundra-landscape. There are quiet a lot of Ethiopian wolves and birds of pray there. Further there is the Harenna Forest which should be hotter and wetter. We didn’t visit that but i read there is interesting wildlife there too.
With the better connection to Addis this is a trip to do! Indeed the lodge at the Park’s entrance at Disho is in a bad state, it is still a fantastic location and worth booking just for that! We opened o ur curtains in the morning and saw our first African antilope just 15 metres from the window! After that we walked outside and saw in a short time groups of antilopes and warthogs. The Gaysy-area is an open swampy area close to Dinsho. there are a lot of antilopes and warthogs there too. You pass it on the way to Dinsho from Shashemene.
From Disho the Webvalley should be interesting too. On foot or by horse to webvalley from Dinsho might even be more interesting than by car from Goba to the Sanetti Plateau. In Webvalley there should be Ethiopian wolves too.