Uganda

In this travel guide you’ll find many reasons for taking an adventure trip to Uganda.

Uganda is the ideal country to combine adventure, nature, contacts with locals.

Here are the sports and adventures we recommend in this destination.

For more details about sports click here.

Uganda is ideal for trekking, rafting and for a fantastic adventure trip.

• Trekking: Uganda offers routes of any difficulty and duration thanks to its vast and varied territory. You can trekking in the forest, on the Rwenzori mountains and on Mount Elgon but also on the numerous extinct volcanoes all over the country.
• Canoeing: a relaxing sport on Bunyonyi lake where you can also swim.
• Jet Ski on Lake Mutanda admiring one of Uganda’s most spectacular panoramas.
• Rafting on rapids near the sources of the Nile.
• Quad: a unique way to explore Jinja and the surrounding areas, crossing local villages and cultivated fields, offering beautiful opportunities to interact with the locals.
• Bungee Jumping can only be done in Jinja but it’s worth it: here it’s one of the highest in Africa, the platform is located 44 meters above the Nile.
• …

Sleeping in a shelter, spending a day with the locals, discover unknown places, here are some of the special experiences that you could live in this destination.

In Uganda you can experience unique and exciting activities, such as:

• Walking in the tropical forest, over mountains and valleys and considered one of the richest biodiversity forests of Africa. It’s UNESCO heritage.
• Gorilla Trekking, that is approaching mountain-gorilla families, observe their behaviour closely, in their natural habitat.
• Meet the Pygmy communities
• Photo safaris cannot be missing to capture giraffes, crocodiles, buffaloes, elephants, hippos, lions and leopards.
• Safari to see lion climbing, that is, lions that climb trees to spend time between hunts protected from the heat. These trees are called “fig trees” and have branches starting from the bottom. They are real homes for lions.
• Admire the numerous species of animals living in the parks: baboon, or the antelope, the genet, buffalo, elephants, birds, …
• Look for birds, insects, bats, owls during a Night Walk, walking in the forest at night.
• River cruises to see crocodiles, hippos, buffaloes, elephants, birds, …
• …

Here’s what to see during the adventure trip to Uganda:

The capital, Kampala, a two million inhabitants city in the center of a large urban area on the shores of Lake Vittoria in central-eastern Africa.

The center of Kampala is over a series of hills (7, like the hills of Rome ;-)) and is a network of roads often congested by chaotic traffic.

The visit of the city can start from the Uganda National Cultural Center, where you can visit the spectacular National Theater, a large library and the large African Crafts Village which hosts handicrafts made by traditional local artisans, as well as a cinema, various restaurants and numerous auditorium rooms where cultural initiatives, concerts and exhibitions of all kinds are held regularly.

You can continue with a guided tour of the Parliament Building.

And now let’s move on to museums: the Nommo Gallery, which collects, exhibits and offers the possibility of purchasing a large selection of the works of the greatest contemporary artists of East Africa, and the National Museum of Uganda which, in addition to the collections of art, offers the wonderful experience of walking in the green heart of the city, thanks to a splendid public garden in the center of the structure.

The site of the Kasubi Tombs hosts numerous buildings with a characteristic conical shape where the Buganda rulers were buried. In 2010 a fire damaged some of the most important structures but, thanks to the restoration, it’s possible to visit most of the structures.

Before leaving Kampala, it’s worth visiting a couple of interesting buildings: the first is one of Uganda’s most particular religious buildings, the Bahai temple, dedicated to this religion of Persian origin. The temple is located in a beautiful park where you can walk freely and admire the landscape that extends over the hills around Kampala. The second is the presidential palace, just outside the center, in the Mengo area.

The landscape, the flora and the fauna of this country are just one of the reasons to visit it.

Nature is the main reason to visit Uganda, with its unique animals, plants and geographic conformations.

Here are some of the areas worth visiting Uganda:

Kibale Forest N. P. famous for its vast primate population, where you can take a night walk.

Murchinson Falls N. P. to see the falls from above, take a cruise on the Victoria Nile, trekking and photo safaris.

Queen Elizabeth N. P. for photographic safaris in search of lions, elephants, leopards, buffalos, to see climbing lions, take cruises and see the river life of animals, see chimpanzees.

Mghinga N. P. where there are three volcanoes that offer suggestive views of Uganda.

Waterfalls, lakes and rivers

Mountains and volcanoes

Numerous species of animals.

What you could eat and drink in this country

The cuisine in Uganda is a mix of English, Arabic, Asian and Indian cuisine. However, traditions are still alive, in fact in each tribe there is a very characteristic traditional dish. Thanks to a soil and a climate good for agriculture, the dishes are based on various vegetables, potatoes, bananas and many other tropical fruits. In addition, meats such as chicken, beef, goat, mutton and fish are used both fresh and in stews of all kinds.

Pineapples and bananas are a privileged part of the diet in Uganda, sometimes they are cooked or eaten instead of dessert or even as a snack.

Some of the typical Ugandan dishes are:

• Ugali is a millet puree, characteristic especially in the north of the country. It’s cooked with water and served with beef in sauce. It’s also prepared in addition to corn flour with other types of starches such as know and posho and cassava flour.
• Chapati is a typical bread originally from Indian countries. It’s used instead of rice to accompany meat or vegetable dishes.
• Peanuts are common and they are used to prepare a very popular sauce. This is mixed with fish or smoked meat and mushrooms.
• Luwombo is a stew made with both chicken and beef, mushrooms, or fish, cooked in banana leaves.
• Samosa, another dish of Indian origin, a very tasty stuffed meat and vegetable roll.
• Sim – SIm is toasted sesame widely used in the north of the country, it’s added to a vegetable or bean stew or as pasta served as a condiment.
• Mugati naamaggi is a dish of Arab origin. Fried wheat pasta stuffed with minced meat and eggs.
• Nswaa a white ant and Nsenene a grasshopper that we find only in a particular season of the year.
• Matoke is an authentic national dish and originating in the country, made with the matoke plant, or the plane tree, which is cooked in butter, along with onions, fresh coriander and a choice of chilli pepper. At the end of cooking, broth (usually meat) is added.

Uganda is crossed on a plateau, with an altitude ranging between 1,000 and 1,200 meters, and temperatures varying between 25 and 35 ° C. Furthermore, Uganda is characterized by mountainous areas with very high volcanoes and peaks (from 4,000 to over 5,000 meters). Here and in the forests, the temperature range is high.

What is considered the season of big rains goes from April to May and the one of small rains from October to November, but there is no time of year during which the rains are totally averted, because Uganda is on the Equator. However, humidity is generally very low.

The annual average of the sunny climate ranges from 6 hours a day during the rainy season to 10 hours a day during the dry season. For this reason, we can consider Uganda a country to travel all year round.

Language: more than 40 languages are spoken here. The main one is luganda.

Currency: ugandan shilling

Capital: Kampala

For up-to-date and detailed information visit www.viaggiaresicuri.it

Take advantage of porter service when doing Gorilla Trekking.

It’s given the opportunity to offer himself as a porter for tourists no more than a dozen of times a year. For the rest of their days local people are employed as gatherers in the fields where, in a month, they earn the same amount of their daily wages as porters.

Their task during trekking is to bring your equipment, help you in the most difficult and slippery passages to avoid the risk of damaging your photo-graphic equipment, they will give you help for whatever you need.