Elgon Community of Budadiri
Elgon Community of Budadiri is one of the exciting cultural/community projects explored by visitors touring Mount Elgon National Park. Travelers are offered home-stay accommodation to feel the thrill of staying in a typical rural home setting, exciting traditional dances, guided village walks, and coffee tours to learn about the process of growing, harvesting/picking coffee beans, drying, and roasting coffee beans, then savoring your favorite beverage as prepared by the local village women as you learn.
Guided walks are organized through the Elgon community of Budadiri, providing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour the Arabica coffee farms. Arabica is a high-quality coffee type grown on the slopes of Mount Elgon and during your visit, you can tour the farms and processing plants within the area. These farms and plants support the livelihoods of local farmers in the Elgon sub-region.
Another experience enjoyed by visitors who tour the Elgon Community of Budadiri is learning about traditional food preparation and tasting of the region’s signature cuisine- “Malewa”. Made from young dried Bamboo shoots, Malewa is the local dish prepared with groundnut paste and enjoyed with steamed plantain (matooke), sweet potatoes, or rice. Join the local women in preparing this delicious local dish and even savoring it while sharing stories of the area.
The Elgon Community of Budadiri doesn’t only offer guided village walks but also nature walks/hiking, hence making it also wonderful for nature lovers. There are currently three incredible hiking trails in the community/area that include the full-day Namugabwe Cave Trail that goes through a community land of the Bamasaba people (Bagisu) as well as vast banana plantations before ending at the legendary Namugabwe Cave. This historical Cave is filled with bones and is one of the must-visit places in the community.
Interestingly, the Elgon community of Budadiri is the starting point for the 3-day guided walk to Sipi Falls that goes through communities of the two dominant tribes of the sub-region- Bagisu and Sabiny. Additionally, the Dirigana Loop Trail passes through local markets, the renowned “walls of death, Gabushana Cave, and the breathtaking Dirigana waterfalls.
For overnight accommodation after your community and nature walks, visitors don’t have to go far because the Elgon Community of Budadiri provides eco-friendly Bandas that were constructed with traditional/local raw materials. While staying here, you can be treated to delicious local meals and campfire experiences in the evening/s to share stories of your safari and stay.
Besides the Elgon Community of Budadiri, other village/community walks in the Mount Elgon region include the Sipi Widows’ Group.
Mount Elgon, standing on the Uganda-Kenya border is a 4321-meter tall volcano that is believed to have existed for over 24 million years hence making it one of the oldest physical features in the country. It has the largest volcanic base in the whole World at 4000 square kilometers. The Ugandan side of this Mountain (including its peaks and slopes) is protected by an 1110-square-kilometer Mount Elgon National Park. This Protected Area is home to large and small mammal species that include forest elephants, buffaloes, leopards, black and white colobus monkeys, De Brazza’s monkeys, Defassa waterbucks, blue monkeys, bush pigs, duikers, spotted hyenas, and Oribis. Also, over 296 bird species are found in this National Park including 40 species that are restricted to the region, and 56 of the 87 Afrotropical highland Biome species. Species to see include the endangered Lammergeyer, Tacazze sunbirds, the black-collared Apalis, Jackson’s spurfowl, Red-fronted parrots, and Black-shouldered Kites, to mention but a few.
Community walks are not all Mount Elgon National Park is known for but also mountain climbing, guided forest walks/hiking, Trout fishing, mountain biking, Archery, visits to Sipi Falls, and bird watching among others.
