The beauty that is Sipi Falls

Rolling off a 70 metre cliff, gently down, it thunders and washes the area around. At the bottom of the cliff, a lovely crater has formed. It is at this crater, that I dare friends, Zahara and Clare to a cold morning shower.

From afar, the cold winds hit you. It is a gentle slope across a small stream. A young boy who keeps around the falls, in faltering English asks me to put my ear to the ground. The roar from underneath is real suggesting a turbulence of sorts.

My simple understanding is the waters from the falls form an underground river that pours into the low lands of Teso below the hills of Kapchorwa.

We take a climb with a young man who having struck a chord with us becomes our guide. Midway the journey, our guide asks us to pay Shs10,000 per person or we risk failing to go beyond a certain point.
We haggle and settle for Shs5,000, which because he is not able to receipt the transaction

Glowing stones and horned chameleons
Further up the climb, a stall of rocky stones horn through the morning sun, which as our guide informs us, the stones are mined up from Mt Elgon. The stones he tells us, glow at night and each is sold at Shs2,000.

The young man, who now has been joined by two others argue among themselves because they had intended to tell us the stones cost Shs5,000 each. However as we discover, the stones do not glow.

In the same stretch there is honey, which is priced at Shs15,000. However, because I am not in the mood for honey and I am not sure if it is not wood glue, I decline to buy.
Zahara, who had walked ahead of us, lets out a loud scream forcing the rest of us into momentous panic as we dash towards her direction.

A ‘green’ three-horned chameleon brazenly stares as if scanning our next move.
Its simple movement invites more screams, but the day is saved by one of our guides who, using a stick, cast the chameleon out of our way.

After small climb, we walk behind a huge boulder from where we set our eyes on a scenic view of the falls whose beauty marvels mountainous Kapchorwa.
My heart jumps with excitement pushing me to strip to my boxers and take a shower under the falls.
My colleagues, being females, decline to join in the excitement choosing to watch from a distance as they marvel away at falls.

Our guide - Chekwet – attempts to explain how the falls came about but he fails midway attracting us to another group of visitors who we join and listen in to a better and grasped explanation detailing the history of the falls and associated tales.

“Mzungus [whites] who came here found a woman in a garden and asked her the name of the falls. She thought they were asking about the plants she was picking and she simply said “sep” pointing to the wild plants she was picking”, the guide explains taking us through how the name Sipi came about.

“They [Mzungus] heard Sipi yet the woman had said sep, one of the medicinal plants in Kapchorwa that treats high fevers,” he says.

Sipi, according to the guide, is a combination of falls but with only three prominent formations that are accessed through Sironko.

The water that runs over the falls is drawn from Mt Elgon rolling off the edge of Mt Elgon National Park and into the lowlands of Teso.

The other falls, which measure as high at 100 metres, however, the guide says do not give an exciting view from the bottom.

“In fact it is wrong to say there are three falls from Mt Elgon. Below the major falls, there are a 1,000 other falls,” the guide says.
The falls are most clearly viewed from Kapchorwa Town before they roll off into Bukwo District.

shower under the falls

The water at the lower end of the falls is ice-cold, close to freezing point. But my body was just ready for the adventurous moment.

The shower at the deep end of Sipi Falls is perhaps explained by Fagil Mandy in whose book he describes it as a healing experience.

Indeed, I needed some healing from the many journeys that I had covered to make it to the falls.

But beyond the journeys, I needed some cooling off from the embarrassing moments that I had experienced at the hotel resort in Mbale Town where I had spent my night. For a whole day, I could not, for reasons that I found flimsy, get water to shower.

As if it was my making, I was told I would not get water in my room on the third floor of the hotel because during dry seasons, the system has no enough pressure to pump water that far.
How else could I cool off this heat within me than taking a cold shower at Sipi? It was such a phenomenal moment.

The road to the falls
The falls lie north-east of Mbale Town from Sironko District rolling off one of the ranges that make up Mt Elgon. It is a one and half hours’ drive from Mbale Town.

From Kampala, the falls lie in north eastern Uganda 300 kilometres east of the capital Kampala. The road to Kapchorwa has a number of sharp bends rolling off cliffs. There are also heavy Chinese trucks ferrying limestone from Karamoja. These are potential hazards that need to be carefully watched.

The road leading to the falls is slippery during the wet season and a four wheeler is the best bet during such weather.

Once there, one will need a useful guide as our experience showed many of the guides’ around are just but hungers on.

The fake ones never issue receipts and stories of “they are finished” are retold over and over again.

Sipi falls
Location. Sipi Falls is a series of three waterfalls in eastern Uganda in Kapchorwa District, northeast of Sironko and Mbale. The waterfalls lie on the edge of Mt Elgon National Park near the Kenyan-Uganda border.

Stunning views. Hikes around the falls offer stunning views of the Karamoja plains, Lake Kyoga, and the slopes of Mt Elgon.

Relaxing. With a cooler climate than most of the country, Sipi Falls is a nice place to unwind, relax and literally chill out away from the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities.
Activities. Sipi offers a number of alternative activities to the mainstream river activities which include abseiling along the side of the main 100m Sipi, climbing on 14 bolted sport routes, hiking around the local area and visiting the local waterfalls.

Origin of name.

The Sipi River is named after the ‘Sep’, a plant indigenous to the banks of the river. Sep is a medicinal plant used for treating measles and fever.