As a vocational college we not only offer quality education and community for our students, but we also want to bring our culture closer to more people and show them the beauty of Rwenzori, Kasese District and our people. In collaboration with the tourism course of our college we are now offering community tours for visitors that want to get to know Uganda from another point of view. Our interns Paul and Kira from Germany took chance to do such a tour with us and are now sharing their experience with you:
“We started our tour from the Rwenzori Vocational College and took off to our first destination with our guides for the day Godfrey, director of RVC and Eric, teacher of tourism. On our way we passed the beautiful landscape of Queen Elizabeth National Park and reached a lake within the park where we were surprised to find a lot of hippos sitting in the water and standing on the shoreline. We had a closer look and took some nice pictures before continuing our tour. When we reached the fisher’s village Katwe just next to Lake Edward, the fisherman were just preparing their boats, so we had a look around the village and set off to our next destination after some talks with the people. After short drive we reached a former salt factory that used to manufacture salt from the water of a natural salt lake nearby. The place has been abandoned quite some years ago and it was exciting to have a look at the old factory building that still reflects how work used to be at the place.
We saw the pipeline that used to pump the salty water to the factory so we wanted to see where it leads and went to the salt lake. As the salt is not produced by a factory any more community members of the area have the opportunity to take part in harvesting and selling salt. One of the salt farmers explained the procedure to us which was very interesting to see. After a delicious lunch at a local restaurant we took off to the border of Congo. We went by car as far as the control point and then continued by foot up to Congo River where we got a glimpse of the other country.
We headed back to Kasese after a beautiful day filled with new impressions and adventures. It was nice to not only see the common places but also get an impression of the communities around and their way of living. We enjoyed visiting places no regular tour company would take you too, like the salt factory. We felt that we got a way more real and personal experience that way, of course also thanks to Godfrey and Eric that made the experience truly unique and enjoyable! “