Kampala to Sipi

Your driver-guide collects you after breakfast and drives east in a private vehicle. The road passes through Jinja, where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria, then climbs through the highlands around Mbale towards Mount Elgon. The red lowland soil gives way to terraces of banana, maize and coffee, and the air cools as you gain height. You stop for lunch on the way.

You arrive in the mid-afternoon and check in to your lodge, which looks across the valley to the falls. Your guide then takes you on a relaxed walk through Sipi village, past market stalls, coffee drying tables outside homes and some of the paths you will hike tomorrow. Dinner is at the lodge.

• Private transfer from Kampala
• Lunch stop on the way
• Orientation walk through Sipi village

Waterfalls Hike and Coffee Experience

After breakfast you set out on a guided circuit to all three of Sipi's waterfalls. The trail runs along open ridges with wide valley views and through forested gorges, where you feel the spray before you see the water. The first fall is the tallest, dropping about 100 metres from a sheer volcanic lip into a misty pool. Your guide takes you to a viewpoint close enough to feel the cool air coming off it. The second fall sits in a narrower ravine and the third in a more open green bowl, so the three look quite different.

Along the way your guide points out the fig trees anchoring the gorge walls, bee-eaters nesting in the cliffs, the terrace farming above the falls and the channels that carry water to local plots.

In the afternoon you visit the home of a coffee farmer whose Arabica smallholding is part of the local cooperative. You pick ripe red cherries, learn to pulp and sort the beans, roast them over a wood fire in a clay pot, grind them by hand, then brew and drink your cup. Later your guide takes you to a viewpoint on the ridge above the escarpment, where the Karamoja plains stretch away east and turn from green to amber at sunset. Dinner is at the lodge.

• Guided hike to all three Sipi waterfalls
• Coffee farm visit: pick, roast, grind and brew
• Sunset photography on the ridge

Community Walk and Return to Kampala

The last morning is a slower community walk around Sipi. You visit the women's craft group, whose members make woven baskets, barkcloth items and beaded jewellery using Sabiny patterns and techniques. You can watch them work and buy directly from the makers. Your guide helps with translation and choosing. You can also visit the local school, where a donation of school supplies is welcome but optional.

After breakfast, check-out and a final lunch at or near the lodge, you drive back to Kampala through Mbale and Jinja, with photo stops where the light is good.

• Visit the women's craft group
• Optional school visit
• Lunch, then the drive back to Kampala