We did a bit of shopping in Mbale before we left. The town was obviously quite a poor town with a large Indian community who returned to Uganda after being driven out by Idi Amin. The drive up to Sipi Falls was absolutely spectacular and the landscape is amazingly lush. We drove through many banana plantations and tiny villages on the way up to Crows Nest campsite. The majority of the villages are just mud huts with either straw or tin roofs, the tin ones being hot during the day and cold at night.

At Sipi we took a local guide, Moses, who works at the camsite. On the first evening we walked to the caves just below the falls and he took us past his house and village on the way back. The people here are very poor, barely sratching a living with two thirds of the population being unemployed.

On our second day we left camp at 7 a.m. with Moses to alk t the falls. It was a long hard climb for us as we are rather out of condition after driving in the truck for 4 months. We climbed right up through the banana plantations to the top of the falls but it was orth it as te view from the top was spectacular looking right over the Ugandan Plateau in one direction and up to Mount Elgon in the other. Moses was an excellent guide who spoke perfect English. He gave us lots of information about the surrounding vegitation and life in Uganda even going on to explain all about circumsision which is not carried out until a male is in his early 20's. The pain suffered proves that the boy has grown to manhood. He also told us about female genital mutilation a barbaric practice still carried out in much of Africa but which they are trying to stamp out in Uganda. The walk took us 4 hours and we were exhausted when we got back as the temperature had reached 30 plus by this time and we just fell asleep in the chair.