Sipi Falls

Coffee from the tree to the cup,
in one morning.

Three separate falls drop off the western shoulder of Mount Elgon, the tallest of them nearly 100 metres, looking out over the Karamoja plain. The slopes below them grow some of the best Arabica in Africa, and you can follow it from the tree to the cup in a morning.

Uganda is the second largest coffee producer in Africa and almost no visitor sees any of it. Sipi is where that is easiest to fix. The smallholders on this slope grow Arabica at around 1,800 metres, and the community tours walk you through picking, pulping, drying, hulling, roasting over a fire and grinding by hand, finishing with a cup of what you just made.

It is the most straightforwardly enjoyable half day in Uganda and it costs very little, and the money goes to the farmer whose trees you have been standing under.

Then there are the falls themselves: three of them, walkable in a loop of three or four hours with a guide, and abseilable down the 100 metre one if that appeals. The whole place looks east over the plain, so it is the best sunrise on a Uganda itinerary.