Hemingway Adventure

Western Rift Valley, Uganda

By the time our two single-engined Cessnas take off, the worst of the storm has passed, but an hour out of Entebbe we hit a belt of heavy rain at seven thousand feet. The little plane bucks alarmingly and water streaks across the window below which I can see the outline of our right-hand landing wheel, and far below it occasional glimpses of great curved rocks rising from dense tropical forest. The weather is so bad that we have to put down at a maize-field airstrip close by a game lodge called Semliki, on the edge of the Mountains of the Moon.

In grand comfort, under a tall thatch roof, we have lunch and, after the rain passes, set off again, flying north. The long thin finger of Lake Albert separates Uganda from what is now the Republic of the Congo. The Congo shore is hidden in a haze of smoke from land-burning fires, but the eastern shore of the lake is clear. A long cliff wall folds gracefully down to the water as the escarpment meets the Western Rift Valley. Waterfalls cascade down the rock-face splashing onto narrow beach settlements, inaccessible from the landward side. Fishermen's boats are drawn up on the shore and the huts are simple straw shelters. As we fly lower and closer I1m surprised to see these tiny villages are full of people. They wave up at us and the children caper around as we fly over them. The sun breaks through for the first time today, sending an imprint of our fragile little plane skimming across the waters below.

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PALIN'S GUIDES

Series: Hemingway Adventure
Chapter: Western Rift Valley, Uganda
Country/sea: Uganda
Place: Western Rift Valley
Book page no: 182

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Western Rift Valley, Uganda

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