Experience the World of the Mundari Cattle Camp on this Ultimate 4-Day, 3-Night Tour to South Sudan.
On this 4-Day Mundari Cattle Camp Tour, you will have the opportunity to experience the daily life in a Mundari cattle camp as well as live with other traditional ethnic groups.
The Mundari cattle camp is one of the most desolate places in South Sudan. They usually settle near the banks of the Nile River.
The vast, arid, dry, and hot land is blanketed by the smoke from hundreds of bonfires. In the haze, you will see naked men, cows with huge horns, and the iconic Mundari totem, which inspired the last place’s logo.
The Mundari cows are of the Ankole-Watusi species. The Ankole-Watusi are characterized by their huge horns.
These sacred animals are the driving force behind their lives, culture, and religion.
The only way to access the spiritual realm is to use cattle as mediums and channel the energies through the ash on their skin.
The Mundari’s semi-nomadic lifestyle is determined by the amount of pasture available for cattle. They depend on cattle for their food and economic well-being.
These animals are also a symbol of social standing and the ability to get married and start a family because their dowry is paid in cattle units.
Cattle camps are a place of learning for Mundari boys.
Older generations teach younger generations the tribal ways until they pass the rite to become adults.
Older people and pregnant women, as well as the rest of society, usually live in towns.
Young men and adults are responsible for caring for and grazing their flock. Infants are responsible for regrouping the cattle, milking the cows, and piling the cow’s dung to set the bonfires.
The children also do a strange thing: to increase milk production, the children push the cows into their vaginas.
The men are scarred on the forehead with knives as a reference to the horns of the cows; after the ritual, the young boys are given a cow and a proper name. Mundari cover their bodies with ash from the bonfires.
They use cow’s urine to shower and also use this liquid to color their hair so most men have orange hair.
4-Day Mundari Cattle Camp Tour Highlights
- Day 1: Arrival & Hotel Transfer
- Day 2: Transfer to Mundari Tribal Area
- Day 3: Visit Mundari Tribe
- Day 4: Visit Mundari Tribe & Transfer to Juba
Detailed 4-Day Mundari Cattle Camp Tour Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival & Hotel Transfer
Welcome to Juba, South Sudan’s capital. Your guide will pick you up from the airport and drop you off at your hotel.
Stay at the Royal Palace Hotel, or a similar hotel, to relax and get ready for your next day’s encounter at the Mundari cattle camp.
Day 2: Transfer to Mundari Tribal Area
Start your day with breakfast, then have your driver take you to the Mundari tribal area for your Mundari Tour. You will arrive at the Mayong village, meet the local elders, and have lunch (picnic).
After lunch, you will proceed to a cattle camp to experience the Mundari way of life. The Mundari have preserved the Animistic cattle camp culture, while the neighboring Dinka have lost many of these traditional ways due to war and conversion to Christianity.
You will also visit small villages in the Mundari area, where facial and body scars are still practiced today.
After the cattle camp, you will have an evening dinner in Mayong, followed by accommodation camping/tents.
Day 3: Visit Mundari Tribe
Spend a full day learning about the Mundari people, their culture and traditions, and spend the night camping. Mundari people live in the north of the country, centered around the settlement of Terekeka, and earn their living through herding and agriculture.
They live in small villages and have a very traditional way of life. Traditionally, young men and women are marked with a series of parallel V-shaped scars across their foreheads.
This tradition is now officially prohibited by the government and is beginning to die out, but most men and women over 25 will sport these markings.
The Mundari are also locally famous wrestlers, and on certain days each week, young men from neighboring villages come together to compete in traditional shows of strength.
It is quite a spectacle, as the men dance and etch patterns into their bodies and throw and hold each other down, while the surrounding crowd cheers and sings for their teams.
It is an opportunity to see an African side that may not be around for much longer.
Day 4: Visit Mundari Tribe & Transfer to Juba
After one last morning with the Mundari, make your way back to the capital of Juba, South Sudan, for a bit of a break before heading into town.
