22 – 25 OCTOBER 2011

JINJA and SIPI FALLS, UGANDA

Check in at the very friendly Explorers Backpackers and get an empty dorm to myself.

It is very laid back here as all the party animals check into their sister lodge at Bujagali Falls, where the overland trucks pull in. It’s a lovely garden and I settle in to ring and book in to Zen Tubing: no longer operating. Next try booking an African Queen sunset cruise: not operating yet, maybe next year. Then try booking for the Jet boat ride here – no go because the driver is with his wife in england while she give birth to their first child. Oh dear, aside from trying to kill myself on Grade 5 rafting, that only leaves the sunset cruise (read booze cruise, due to its open bar) tomorrow night. I book in and relax in the garden to soon meet  Sam who had been volunteering at a school in Arusha, teaching Physics for the last three months. He is lovely to talk to, free wi fi comes back online and I spend the evening researching ways to pick up a tour of the Masai Mara from Nakuru in Kenya without having to go to Nairobi first. It is lovely and relaxed here and the young uns head out to later while I head to bed. Next morning Sam tells me the night out was good BUT he had his wallet nicked then after trying to ring the bank and running out of credit, had his 

The source of the White Nile River

phone knocked off as well!! I help him out to contact his bank with some cash to tide him over till he gets to the bank to use his spare card. He’s off to battle the rapids on a rubber raft today and not back in time to indulge in the booze cruise. I walk to town, to market, back to a walk bridge seriously guarded by two armed soldiers. I find the Speke Memorial, where John Hanning Speke, an intrepid English explorer, declared this place as being the source of the Nile River – the White Nile at least. This was confirmed by Henry Morton Stanley.

The Blue Nile springs form Lake Tana in Ehtiopia. There is still a lot of argey bargey about tributaries contributing to the river but Jinja is claiming that The Nile’s source is Lake Victoria; therefore here is the source of the Nile. I start to get a bit weary but find its quite isolated around here and no boda bodas competing for business here.  Then in the distance I’m sure I can hear one that eventually appears, so I flag him down and get back to town tout suite.

Fishing on Lake Victoria

Booze cruise is a lovely relaxed evening. I meet a traveller who has travelled south from Ethiopia and she managed to pick up a safari from Nakuru into the Masai – there is hope for my idea maybe… I fill up on drinks and snacks and after getting back to Explorers, Sam I am and I head into town to get online – alas a power outage foils our plans. Our evening is as exciting as Sam getting conned into buying two rolexs for dinner and we walk a length or two of Main St before heading back to the backpackers.

Wake up to rain, rain, go away! Hmm do I want to venture to Sipi Falls today? Or I could stay here in town, check out the Nile Brewery for a souvenir for Kyle, go out to the Bujagali falls and the Kilombera weaving workshop, and there are all the crafty places that were closed yesterday.

I decide to stay. Then the rain eases off and I decide again to go because staying will only mean spending more money and buying more ‘stuff’ when I had planned to leave Uganda on the shillings I have already. So I pack and along with Sam I Am, we leave together to find NO boda bodas at the gate, nor at the corner – the rain has sent them all into hiding. We walk a couple of blocks when one boda boda sheltering calls out and Sam I Am kindly offers it to me. I get off to town to sit in a minibus headed to Mbale for the next hour. It takes so long to fill (my fault I know because of my lazy late start) that folk on board are ordering lunches, getting it delivered and dining right there in the back seat! Lol

We get on our way, a trouble free160km trip and I get dropped at a central corner in Mbale to look for another taxi traveling to Sipi Falls. I walk around the corner – “Auntie, Auntie, Sipi Falls? Crows Nest?” Why yes, my man, that’s exactly where I want to go and my carriage awaits me needing only two other passengers to fill it. Half an hour later I get dropped at the Crow’s Nest’ driveway, get greeted by a prospective guide (or is that he sees a prospective walker) who carries my pack up the hill to check in. I take a bed in the dorm – which is empty, nicely netted and with amazing views from the verandah.  No power here – they have a generator but only turn it on for groups.

At the bar

Sipi Falls is in the western foothills of Mt Elgon in Kenya and the countryside is lush, green with only the constant cascading water for a soundtrack. The rain is setting in to a light drizzle making the mud paths very treacherous for awkward old me but I persist; make it down to the village where the poverty is so striking and reminiscent of many parts of West Africa. Except there it was hot and here it is cold and wet. To see little skinny kids shivering away in a thin shirt and shorts or skirt with the only toy in sight, a buckled bicycle rim that kids take turns pushing along with a fashioned stick, stopping every now and again to wash it down in a muddy puddle because this mud is very sticky. The majority of elderly women are also barefooted but gumboots are favoured by the men. Everyone is stepping lightly except for some kids that are skidding down the slopes on the mud.

Sheltering from the rain

No power here either but the bar offers to put a beer in the fridge – ten minutes. As if, but I go along with it and ask them to keep another one in there for tomorrow same time – with some luck I may get a cool beer tomorrow night. Do you have Club? No. What do you have? We have Nile, Pilsener and Club. I will have a Club please.

Somewhere over the rainbow

There is a television hooked up to a DVD player that shows continuous African music videos – if its not a religious song, it will be gangster rap with many gorgeous girls wiggling hips. The kids on the street take in every bit of it and I can only assume they have memorised all the moves.  Back to Crows Nest for my pre ordered dinner of bamboo shoots in groundnut sauce, vegies and rice – Delicious and today’s paper even had a recipe for bamboo shoots that I have now saved – I’m sure Tez will be impressed.  Tonight the quiet countryside is disturbed by music and DJs very close by, until 5am.

I sleep with earplugs and it is not enough to stop this racket. At breakfast I ask about it – it’s the neighbouring lodge whose owner passed away but is not yet buried. The family are keeping a vigil each evening for him. Yes they have electricity and they will keep vigil every night until the funeral – BLAH I find it quite bizarre that I came here because it is gorgeous and natural and quiet and this chap passes away at a lodge right next door to where I am staying and his vigil requires loud music, karaoke prayers to loud music and by daybreak many spoken prayers and hallelujahs…



Next day I walk and walk, check out falls one and two, find that I am still instilling fear in small children although the occasional kid is brave enough to come and shake hands with me. Visit a few other lodges especially one built around the last English Governor’s holiday home – great views of the main cascades. Lunch at another UCOTA (Uganda Community Tourism Association) project – Moses - with great views and vegies on a lovely deck.  Only one tourist here as well, who is camping in his 4wd. Getting back to Crow’s Nest in loads of time to watch the gathering clouds and a heavy downpour that followed. But soon it stops enough to head back to the village for my daily beer then back for another dinner of bamboo shoots – I feel like I’m competing with the gorillas for their fav foods. The evening begins very quietly but around midnight I am woken by dreadful singing accompanied by the same amplified music. Now I think it may be a backing track for sung prayers??? Either way it’s very annoying and I decide I’m out of here – two nights with no sleep is all I can handle. By 6.30am I’m packed and walking to the main road for a matatu back to Mbale. Of course my appearance attracts the young village men who quickly inform me that today is market day and there won’t be many matatus going all the way to Mbale – of course, my good luck has well and truly run out here in Sipi. They suggest I get a boda down the hill to the junction, but I don’t fancy heading right down the hill for 10kms with my pack. Eventually my patience pays off and a crowded car pulls up with room for one more. He kindly drops right at the taxi going to the border town of Tororo and they turf a young man out of the front seat and give it to me. I have no qualms whatsoever about this nowadays and soon enough we’re off, an hour late we pass through Tororo and onto Malaba. A lovely wander through another crummy border town and use the last of my Ugandan Shillings to indulge in that wonderful Ugandan specialty, my last rolex. Easy out of Uganda but Kenya only gives me thirty days at a cost of $50 – I will have to investigate extending it in Nakuru or Nairobi.

FACT: Uganda seems like it is may be on a road to nowhere very fast – after reading this collection of items I will let you be the judge.

Big news every day in the newspaper this week with much lamenting is their beloved Cranes’ football loss to Kenya and their failure to qualify for the Africa All Nations Cup next year. Their star player, David Obua was expelled from the training camp a day before the match because he did not appear in a photo shoot audience during a visit from the president. Memories of General Amin??

Current Parliament is in an uproar after revelations that some ministers abused their powers and profited from cash gifts off foreign oil companies. People were riveted to their TVs for 2 days as parliament was televised showing MP after MP making statements demanding conduct investigations. The President maintains that the tendered documents were fake and so far that is that! Caucus has now decided that it would be unfair to make ministers accused of alleged corruption step aside. And the current transaction that is pending a parliamentary probe is not affected by the recent parliamentary resolution that asked the Government to impose a moratorium on all new oil transactions until the necessary laws have been put in place.

A woman tried to kill herself after finding condoms in her husband’s trouser pockets. He claimed to have received them from an NGO who was distributing them free of charge, but she remained unconvinced and tried to hang herself before neighbours rescued her.

More than 200 children have been evicted from the Buddikiro Childrens Agency after the District Board allocated the land to Lt Col Muheirwe. Newspapers report that the majority of stranded children have resorted to house breaking, pick pocketing smoking marijuana, robbery, theft and burglary. I assume they were ignoring the land theft that contributed to the children being on the streets in the first place??

A Health + Beauty liftout had several features including one about skin cancer reporting that light skinned people and albinos are at greater risk. A statement from Claire Wabule, Secretary for albino women and children: Our lives are endangered. People sacrifice us because they believe our body parts can be used as medicine to cure diseases like HIV/AIDS, and make fetishes for acquiring wealth. Sounds like she has more to worry about than too much sun, methinks?

Lwengo district sacks 120 teachers: Accusing them of failing the Universal Primary Education programme, the chairman related how over 30 teachers had been found with fake credentials while others had abandoned their schools for over two months. “When we discovered the majority of the affected teachers had left their work for a long time and were continuing to receive their monthly salaries, we had to take action” he said. They have now finalised plans to advertise and recruit 120 teachers to replace those that were fired. Ahh efficiency?

Ten million Ugandans do not have toilets – the report went on to say close to 30.3% of the Ugandan population have no toilets. Statistics also show that over 17% of all deaths in children aged under five are caused by diarrhoea. This is supported by the report which shows only 24% of the people living in rural areas wash their hands after visiting the latrine, but this is an improvement from 21% in the 2009/2010 financial year. Experts attributed the rampant bacterial diseases in the country on poor sanitation. OOOH perhaps they need toilets and then the taps can follow?

The security minister has asked his constituents to desist from practising witchcraft because the vice was causing the district to lag behind in development. He also warned that the culprits risked being lynched by mobs.  The next article went on to say: Traditional herbalists recently fled after residents attempted to lynch them. The residents were upset when the herbalists failed to heal their colleague, who had been attacked by demons, after raising sh800, 000 to pay the traditional healers. 

Walk to Work protesters from Activists for Change, are charged with taking part in an unlawful assembly. The Police Chief would like to charge them with treason punishable by death and the President would like anyone who is charged to be imprisoned for six months, without trial on the grounds that the Walk to Work protests are a deliberate and well planned plot to overthrow the government. The Opposition feel that this is distorting the law to suit the Presidents whims over the right to demonstrate.