Taking a sip from Sipi Falls

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We went on our second little adventure this weekend, this time a little further than last time. We took the taxibus from Jinja to Mbale, and what was supposed to be a 2 hour drive turned into a 3 hour nightmare. The best thing with these taxibuses is that on the outside of each of them it says “Licensed to carry a maximum of 14 persons”, yet we have not seen one with less than 20 passengers. This time we were 25 people in the taxi and one goat! It’s all about making money and the passengers are treated like cattle more than anything else. They want as many in as possible and the bus needs to be full all the time or the driver will not go. So half way to Mbale we stopped in a city called Iganga to fill up the bus. There was a man outside with three suitcases, waiting to get on a taxibus to Mbale. So our driver along with two other drivers from two other taxibuses decided to fight for the man. Each driver took a suitcase each and put it into their bus. The man was left standing there with no suitcases and no idea where to go. Finally he chose to go in our taxibus and asked the other drivers to return his belongings. I looked on in amazement while the drivers pushed each other and grabbed the suitcases, and I felt sorry for the poor man. However here is where you see the really beauty in this place. The man got into our taxi and started to laugh, so did the other passengers and the driver. The driver even turned around to us and said: “Mzungo, OK?” (whiteman, ok?) and put up his thumb. Everybody started laughing including me.

We finally got to Mbale, which wasn’t our final destination. We got out of the taxi and directly searched for the next one, which would take us to Sipi Falls, our final destination. I was so glad to jump into the half full taxi and finally had the time to relax. But my relaxation was short lived. After about 20 minutes of the one hour drive to Sipi, the driver stopped and told us to get out. We were shown to another car that had stopped on the side of the road. This wasn’t a taxibus, but a sort of a station wagon, like a typical “family car” that one would see in Sweden. They opened the door and the car was absolutely packed. The 7 or 8 seat car already had 15 people inside and we had to squeeze in with our bags. Apparently this car was packed even by Ugandan standards as some of the locals were complaining. I am not kidding when I say it was the most uncomfortable 40min of my life. I was basically supporting my whole weight with my big toe, as it was the only thing that could fit on the floor. I wasn’t sitting; I was sort of kneeling on the floor. Sipi Falls is close to 2000 meters above sea level so the road up is steep and the overloaded car had problems going up. I am normally so shy and careful, but I needed to let out some aggression as my legs were killing me. So at one point as shouted: “Are you f***ing kidding me? I can walk faster than this!” It was ok though, people laughed, including the driver.

We arrived in Sipi Falls 5 hours after we left home and I have to admit the view alone was worth the killer trip. We decided to stay next door to the place we had intended to stay as it was cheaper and basically the same standard. The campsite had dorms in which we stayed, which was basically the same as our own room, as we were the only ones in the whole place. The best thing however was the view; from the bottom of the campsite you could see two of the three waterfalls. That’s right, the point with Sipi Falls is that there are some amazing waterfalls there, three to be exact. The largest waterfall is over 100 meters and we could see it perfectly from our campsite. After getting settled we ate some breakfast/lunch and then head off to see two of the waterfalls with our guide Tom. Tom was a 16 year old local boy who worked as a guide during the weekend. The hike was about 4 hours including some stops to take photographs and have a swim. I think we were happy that we took a guide the first day as it was not easy to find the way. We saw the highest waterfall first, then we took a swim in the “natural swimming pool” a bit further down (freeeezing) and finished of by seeing the second waterfall. Both were amazingly beautiful and we got the chance to stand underneath the second waterfall, which was very nice. We ended the long first day by having dinner and a few beers in our neighboring campsite, where we met a German guy who was travelling around Uganda. We sat and ate with him, shared some travelling stories and looked at some of his photographs from Murchison Falls National Park. It did look absolutely amazing, but the trip is quite expensive and we want to save our safari-ing for Kenya (Masai Mara baby!)

The next day we decided to see the third and highest waterfall. We wanted to find the way without a guide so we had to tell Tom that we didn’t need his services. We found the top of the fall without any problem, but getting down was a challenge. In the end we had some kids following us and showing us the way. The best thing was that we had dog from our campsite following us, all the way. We decided to call him Perro and he became our dog for the day. It wasn’t always easy hiking with Perro as there were some parts where we needed to climb. But we refused to leave Perro behind, so at some points I had to carry him. We got to the bottom of the fall and sat for quite a while waiting for the sun to hit the waterfall. While waiting Ewa decided to catch some rays and I decided to explore, trying to climb around the fall so I would end up under it. The rocks were very slippery, but I managed to get behind the over 100 meter giant. The walk back up to the town was very, very hard and it took us some time to find the best path. By this time the kids had gone back, after asking for some money for books. One of the guys was a bit older (maybe even 30 something) but not quite 100%. He wanted 40,000 Ugandan shillings, 30,000 more than we paid our guide the day before. “40,000 for following us around?” I said and gave all three of them 1000 each.

At the top we decided to buy some food and went back to the top of the waterfall for a swim (the top is at the same height as the village). Then we sat on the road and waited for a taxibus for around one hour. Finally one came and we were offered to sit in the front with the driver, the absolute best place to sit. The drive to Mbale went quickly and we found a taxi to Jinja fairly easily. The trip from Mbale to Jinja did actually take around 2 hours this time and we jumped off a bit earlier in our town of Bugembe. We closed the weekend with some street food (chapati, sausages, coca-cola and mountain dew) and a long walk up the hill to the house in the darkness.

In all, the trip was a nice and relaxing getaway. Describing the scenery seems useless since it will not do it justice, hopefully the pictures will at least give a hint of how beautiful it was.

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