From The Nile above Lake Victoria we headed north-east to Sipi village adjacent to Mount Elgon National Park. What is supposed to be an easy 3 1/2 hour trip took us 5 hours as probably 80% of the roads were being ripped up for resurfacing or had more potholes than tarmac. Jenny took lots of photos showing some of the conditions we faced on the road. It will be a great drive in a few months when all is finished.
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| Bone shaking road humps come in about 5 different flavors. |
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| We had this for 30-40 km - note the car driving on the right!. |
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| If it wasn't potholes it was treacherous cliffs where the road edge was eroded. |
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| Then there was the chaos of roadworks for another 50 km. |
Mount Elgon is the 8th highest peak in Africa at 4,321 m - not quite high enough for snow apparently. It is an extinct volcano and has the largest base of any volcano in the world. It spans the border with Kenya and national parks from both countries share the mountain. Forest covers the lower levels and they give way to bamboo at around 2,500 m then heathland at 3,000 m and finally moorland at 3,500 m. A typical summit climb and return takes 4-7 days depending on the route.
We stayed at Sipi River Lodge (
http://www.sipiriverlodge.com) which was set on the bank of the Sipi River and below the famous Sipi Falls. Very leafy and full of birds. We stayed in a comfortable banda with shared bathroom facilities. Mossies are not a problem here so no bed net for the first time in 3 months. The food was great but too much!
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| Sipi River Lodge from the waterfall. Our banda is hidden in the trees on the right. |
We had three nights and two full days and spent the first in the national park. We asked about trail walking for birds and were assigned a compulsory guide - Alex. Alex was excellent (as all the guides have been so far). We walked 7 km in about 6 hours. It’s normally a 2-3 hour walk but Alex was delighted to have birders along and we took our time. Lots of up, up, up then down, down, down stretched some dormant leg muscles. We reached the beginning of the bamboo zone. On the walk I recorded some 58 species including 14 lifers. I probably missed another 4-5 lifers that Alex saw or heard but I couldn’t get onto.
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| Northern Double-collared Sunbird |
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| Grey-throated Barbet |
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| Jenny and guide Alex at the top of the forest zone. |
On the second day we rested up in the morning and I took lots of photos of birds in the lodge gardens. In the afternoon we went on a three hour walk up to the second of three Sipi Falls, then through villages and gardens/farms to the main road where we bought some of the famous Sipi district arabica coffee. The hotel-provided guide Julius was chatty and we learned a lot about village life. He also found two new chameleons for my photo collection (http://bukobasteve.blogspot.ug/2017/01/more-chameleons.html).
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| The first (lowest) section of Sipi Falls |
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| A nice new house waiting for the finishing mud outer wall. |
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| Sipi Village |
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| Collecting water and washing clothes at the community tap. |
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| Giraffe are rare at this altitude but this one was across the road from our lodge. |
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| Rock Martin roosting near the waterfall. |
We had planned to drive straight home from Sipi but the roadworks put us off so we broke the journey with an extra, uneventful night in a Jinja guesthouse then had an easy 3 hour drive home from there.
Today is Thursday and we woke to no power. It came back on about 0900 so we didn’t have to wait too long for morning coffee (Sipi arabica of course). Jenny is preparing for work resuming tomorrow and I’m writing this blog and sorting out photos - absolutely not driving anywhere today!
Lifers:
Sipi Lodge and village:
Southern Citril, Slender-billed Starling, Fan-tailed Raven
Mount Elgon NP:
Northern Double-collared Sunbird, Grey Cuckooshrike, Yellow-crowned Canary, Olive-breasted Greenbul, Grey Apalis, Stuhlmann’s Starling, Grey-throated Barbet, Montane Nightjar, Black-billed Weaver, Abyssinian Crimsonwing, White-headed Wood Hoopoe, Brown-capped Weaver, Abyssinian Ground Thrush, Black-faced Rufous Warbler
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