The pearl of Africa

Over the last five days we have travelled long distances around this small South West corner of Uganda. What an extraordinarily beautiful country it is; it is easy to see how it acquired its title the Pearl of Africa. Neither did it feel that small a corner – we clocked up long distances on a very wide variety of roads, from really well designed and constructed highways to very bumpy, dusty and unsurfaced tracks.Some of the highlights have been crossing the very high hills to get over to the Rift Valley. These hills have been planted with Cyprus trees and eucalyptus in much the same way the Forestry Commission plant forests at home. I guess that much of the land here is too high to grow many crops though we did see a few plots of Irish potatoes The views from these high ridges were spectacular.

At one point we crossed a really narrow watershed between two very deep valleys which is named God’s Bridge due to the dramatic slopes falling away on either side.

A bit further on were amazed to see an almost vertical slope which had been cleared of its trees ready for planting. We couldn’t work out how they could possibly have done it but there were lots of tree remains in the bottom of the valley.

After all this magnificence for several hours we came to the town of Kanungu made infamous in the year 2000 as the scene of the world’s worst cult mass execution when between 300 and 500 people were burned alive in a locked church by the leaders of a cult. Today it is a peaceful town.

Once beyond Kanungu, having lost loads of height, we drove for several miles along a massive road construction project at least partly funded by the Chinese. Throughout our travels new roads were being very well constructed and also well designed on any steep slopes. They are already making a difference to the livelihoods of people close to them. It is clear that road building is a priority in Uganda at present.

The next three days we spent in the heart of the Rift Valley where the savanna grassland is exactly as one imagines it to be. I absolutely loved it. If course we were looking for the big game but I loved driving along, standing up in the vehicle and watching the landscape go past, sometimes mainly grass with thorn bushes ( fearsome 3-4 cm thorns), sometimes more wooded ( elephant like these areas) and sometimes drier with a lot of cactus type trees; but always flat, flat, flat.

As the weather improved while we were there we could also see the Rwenzori – the mountains of the moon, which are rarely clear so we were very lucky.

The Kazinga channel joins the two lakes and provided some wonderful watery shots as we headed out towards Lake Edward ( which looks as large as the sea) just as the light was beginning to fade.

Driving home from here to Kabale we were mainly on the main roads heading for Kampala and here we travelled through large trees and banana estates which provided another new landscape – bright green tea in front of tropical forest: man-made and natural side by side.

This are has a long history of volcanic activity due to its position in the rift so we also saw crater lakes and hot springs en route. The water here where it bubbles up from underground was too hot to bear but close by in the pools it was a little cooler and there were lots of people bathing in it.

The view across the Rift Valley from the escarpment was everything you would expect – a true African vista.

In the end we returned to our beloved lake Bunyonyi in the glorious late afternoon sunshine and it felt like coming home. We were treated to a magnificent sunset on this , our last evening.