This past weekend we took a road trip over to the eastern part of Uganda to see some waterfalls and visit the hometown of one of the local interns, Timothy.
We left bright and early Friday morning for the 6 hour drive over to Tororo and took a pit stop in Jinja to pick up Andre - an EMI architect working at the Amazima School for the day. The road to Tororo was luckily paved the whole way, but with speed bumps about every mile requiring us to slow down to about 15 mph each one. We hit Tororo around 2:30pm and went to the shop and market to pick up some snacks and dinner for the evening.
Tororo was one of the first towns in Uganda where I felt like I could breathe. There were wide boulevard streets and houses with yards. It was really nice. One thing that attracts people to Tororo is hiking up the Tororo Rock that looms on the edge of the city. So we packed up around 3:30pm to go hike the rock and of course a torrential down pour started right as we pulled out from the gate. It didn't seem like a quick storm so we opted for a night in of cooking and a movie.
Saturday we headed over to Sipi Falls. We set off for a hike to see the three different water falls which sit at the base of Mt Elgon - the highest point in Uganda. The smallest was 65 meters and the largest was 100 meters. We hiked with a local guide because in order to hike between the falls you have to traverse down a maze of 1 ft wide paths between private properties and farms.
The foliage at Sipi was gorgeous and very lush. The Sipi Falls area is known for locally grown Bugisu Arabica coffee and it was fun getting to walk through the fields of coffee beans. We saw some chameleons and some pretty birds but there was not much wildlife up there.
Saturday night Timothy's family hosted us for dinner and it was some of the most delicious food I've had in Uganda...his grandma said because it was cooked with love which I didn't doubt. There was a feast of chapati, rice, matoke, potatoes with sauce, gnut sauce, pork, and vegetables in sauce, followed by chocolate cake for dessert. It was a lovely night with his aunts, uncles, grandma, and cousins.
Sunday we packed up and headed home. Took quite a while because we hit traffic in Mukono - a notoriously bad stretch of road outside of Kampala - but managed to get home before dark.
Overall it was a great trip and really fun to see that side of the country!
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