Strolling Around Sipi

Laurel got a chance to do at age 55 what she did not get to when she was in college – stay in a backpackers’ hostel and spend two days trekking around Sipi Falls, a series of three waterfalls in the eastern part of Uganda that sits in the shadow of Mt. Elgon not far from the Kenyan border. On our first afternoon, we toured the local villages with our guide, Alex. Alex, at age 19, had to leave secondary school when his house burned down. He is working as a guide to earn money to allow him to return to school. On our short walk we made a number of friends, especially among the children and the women, who invited us to share in a millet-based local brew with them. However, they thought that our fascination with livestock, particularly a litter of piglets, was a bit strange.

We spent the second day walking from one waterfall to the next. From our camp, we descended to the bottom of the first fall, a 95 meter cascade. From there, we climbed back up (see, e.g., Laurel on the ladder) to the top, then to the second waterfall at 65 meters. Finally, we hiked to the last fall (with a stop to put our feet in the freezing pool at the top of the second fall), which measured 87 meters.

That night, to reward ourselves, we decided to have dinner at a more upscale camp very close to the first waterfall. While the food was quite good, it turned out that no one else was there, and so, with the roar of the falls in the background, we pretended that our private dining room was in a large ship on rough waters.