10 Little-Known Things To Do In Arua, West Nile.

This post is a reblog from the Diary of A Muzungu website by Charlotte Beauvoisin. Visit her website for more travel tips about Uganda and East Africa.

Here’s the muzungu’s guide on how to travel to Arua, 10 things to do in Arua and West Nile, all about Arua town, what to buy in Arua market – and the best times of year to travel.

This trip to the far north west of Uganda would not have been possible without the guidance of Gerard Iga. He is the ‘go to’ guide for Arua and West Nile.

Diary of a Muzungu meets Gerard Iga of Inside West Nile for local lunch in Arua

Special thanks to my friend Harriet Fowler who gave me a return Eagle Air ticket to Arua!

Flight to Arua from Entebbe with Eagle Air

The clouds below our small plane parted to reveal the shimmering water of Lake Albert and the River Nile

I immediately recognised the shape of the Nile Delta, a popular location for Uganda safaris and a good place to see the Shoebill (although perhaps not from this height!)

The Victoria Nile flows down from Lake Victoria through Lake Kyoga via Karuma Falls and thundering down over the famous Murchison Falls. Heading north, the water becomes known as the Albert Nile, and flows from Lake Albert on through South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt.

Flying north over the River Nile, I could make out the shadows of the highlands of Panyimur, location of hot springs. Mount Erusi is the highlands’ highest peak

If you like aerial photos, check out the Air Photo Archive of Settlement and Agriculture, Rural Uganda 1963, created by Walter Deshler, University of Maryland.

Jonam, Pakwach. Air Photo Archive of Settlement and Agriculture, Rural Uganda 1963

The land below remains surprisingly green as we headed north. Superficially at least, not much seems to have changed west of Pakwach in 50 years!

On the north bank of the River Nile, homesteads ‘clusters’ of thatched huts came into view

I could see no brick constructions and no tarmac roads, just dirt roads as far as the eye could see and the very occasional tin roof. Not a vehicle in sight. I could make out the occasional person on a bicycle on the red dust roads.

Borassus Palms are one of the distinguishing trees of the north bank of the Nile, their seeds carried from Sudan in the stomachs of wandering elephants, and later expelled to transform the environment.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/186083362

Eagle Air flight to Arua. Landing from @CharlieBeau Diary of a Muzungu on Vimeo.

We had a very easy landing at Arua Airstrip. Watch the short clip to the end – how delightful to see the schoolchildren watching the plane land! Pretty as a picture.

I’d love to know the story behind this Foundation Stone? The President of Zaire (now DR Congo) General Mobutu, opened the airstrip at Arua in Uganda

About Arua – a great town!

Arua: think ‘Fort Portal without the hills’. We’re talking calm, clean and organised, with a touch of retro, thanks to the colonial architecture.

I travelled with friends from Kampala and Nairobi. We were all impressed by Arua. Many friends had not visited for a decade or more and noticed huge changes in the town.

The pavement outside Arua Hospital is always busy with street vendors and boda boda bicycles. Arua town

Arua is a cosmopolitan town, heavily influenced by its proximity to DRC and South Sudan. Apparently the Congolese of eastern DRC do more trade with Kampala than they do with Kinshasa, their own capital.

There are many forex shops in town. Arua also benefits from the many NGO offices, including Red Cross, Welt Hunger and others, here for humanitarian work in South Sudan.

The most striking thing are Arua’s good – and clean – roads. Bicycles and boda boda motorbikes fill the roads

Cars are few in Arua. You have to feel sorry for the abused vehicles: overloaded trucks carry 30 men at a time.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/183013845

Gerard and Charlotte take a boda boda motorbike ride through Arua town, West Nile, Uganda from @CharlieBeau Diary of a Muzungu on Vimeo.

While the road tarmac is in good condition, you can see the poverty as you drive north, up to the South Sudan border. The road is lined with thatched huts. Mabati tin roofs are few and far between (showing how little money there is in the area).

There is a good road from Kampala via Arua up to the South Sudan border

Arua town has colonial buildings such as the Post Office style that is common to Kampala, Fort Portal and elsewhere. There is a Public Library too.

Arua library on the town’s main street is a colonial style building

The small town has a population of 62,000, with 785,000 in the District. Apparently the late emeritus Bishop of West Nile developed many projects for the local community during his 30 years in office.

“And we should remember they produced a president!” My friend Daniel added, when we were trying to work out why Arua is such a thriving town.

West Nile has historically been isolated, both physically and politically, from the rest of Uganda. There is only one road bridge that crosses Nile (at Pakwach) to connect the region with the rest of the country although there are lesser used ferry crossings.

Former President Idi Amin was born in West Nile (his mother was from Arua and his father was from Koboko). During Amin’s reign, local people are said to have benefited but post-Amin, they were punished politically and economically.

To read more about the history of West Nile, read Dark past to glimmering future; the West Nile you never knew! One day, with an investment in facilities and itineraries, I can imagine tourists visiting the region just to learn more about this period of Uganda’s history.

10 little-known things to do in Arua

1.    Take a walk to the top of Arua Hill for a panoramic view of the town

Sunset over Arua. Panoramic view of town

2.    Eat local food

Market Street in Arua has a good number of restaurants serving goat’s meat, beef, chicken, smoked dried fish with g’nut [groundnut/peanut] sauce.

Traditional lunch of beans, sweet potato and greens, Arua town

Traditional lunch of kalo (millet bread), meat and osubi (finely chopped greens, prepared with groundnut sauce and rock salt), Arua town

Lunch at the Oraba (border with South Sudan) was matooke, cassava, roasted goat’s meat and “innards” (what looks like mushrooms to me, on the left of plate)

“What food will you take with it?” In Uganda, ‘food’ is specifically the starchy stuff like rice, kalo, matooke, sweet potato and chapatis. Side dishes [no jokes please] include tasty osubi, finely chopped greens, prepared with gnut sauce and rock salt.

The Still Baghdad Restaurant in Arua does a good beef pilau rice – with enough chunks of beef to satisfy a Kenyan!

3.    Enjoy the live Congolese music at Club Matonge

The Congo is just a short drive from Arua, meaning the town is a great place to hear Congolose musicians perform. Club Matonge is a  ‘free to enter’ outdoor bar. (The bar doesn’t serve spirits, just beer and wine from a box). We spent a couple of hours here. When the band realised we had Kenyans in our crowd, the singers launched into some classic Swahili songs. Our friends from Nairobi reminisced!

Club Matonge closes around midnight. The same excellent band also play at Annexe on Thursday nights in Arua

4.    Go clubbing at Vino Lounge

Vino is the place to hang out, particularly on Friday nights. It gets packed! Club entrance is free.

Everyone had told us we had to check this place out. It’s a late night / all night club, with several bars. Head for Galaxy, the VIP section, on the 2nd floor to get away from (some of) the crowds. VIP entry costs 10k UGX. These guys can DRINK! OMG. We’re talking neat spirits.

5.    Eat at Café Cosmo, Arua’s best café and restaurant

Open 11 to 11 every day, Café Cosmo is very affordable, has good service and a great menu of international, Indian and local African food. This popular restaurant is frequented by Indians, UGs, expats, everyone.

Is this the world’s tastiest beef samosa?

Sham the chef’s ‘Cosmo Bites’ include the freshest beef samosas ever. Indian dishes include tandoori and a scrumptious chicken tikka. ‘Afro favourites’ include goat stew and chicken pilao. Fridays and Saturdays, Cosmo make pizzas including a tikka paneer one! I’ll try that on my next trip 🙂

Meet Martin Aduku, Cafe Cosmo Arua, the number one place to eat! Thanks to Martin and Cafe Cosmo team for looking after me so well

The mixed garden salad is a (filling) bargain at 10k UGX. The very friendly Martin recommends C.F.C. the ‘Cosmo Fried Chicken’ [geddit?] Other items include burgers, Tilapia, fillet steak, chicken dishes and fish sizzler (skewer). Beers cost 4k UGX and tots of UG (Uganda Waragi to the unitiated) at a very drinkable 2k UGX only. Café Cosmo do takeaways and deliveries. They are also a party venue (and do not charge for venue hire).

Café Cosmo is opposite the URA building on Pakwach Road. Tel +256 794116699 / +256 756335577 cafecosmo@yahoo.com HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

6.    Oasis 247 bar and restaurant is open every day

Karaoke nights, quiz nights and pool competitions make this a popular hang-out. Oasis is a good bar for beer promotions and music videos.

7.    Walk round the back streets of Arua to see the Hindu Temple

The striking red wall enclosing Arua’s Hindu temple. The ladies here are selling sweet potato seedlings

8.   Visit Arua’s markets. The muzungu’s shopping suggestions

This humble lady vendor had a beautiful shy smile. She packed some dried “o’bokoa” for me. Apparently they taste a bit bitter, like eggplant

Giant mushrooms fill a plastic basin! These seasonal beauties grow in termite mounds (in August/September). And to think we suffer such tiny, tasteless mushrooms in Kampala!

Preparing ffene (jackfruit). I love the bright traditional clothes of local women; so much more interesting than the predictable Western attire in Kampala

Dried enswa white ants – in the black basin in the photo – on sale in Arua market. This vendor gave me a recipe for enswa sauce!

These cheeky boys had some tasty-looking chapatis. In the plastic bag is mairungi (quat) ‘chewable herbs’ shall we say … a mairungi rolex anyone?

• Kitenge material from the Congo
• Termite mushrooms – click here for A Kitchen in Uganda’s Curry Termite Mushroom Soup recipe!
• Groundnuts in their shells
• Shea butter (locally farmed)
• Sim sim sesame seeds
• Sugarcane
• Jackfruit (peeled into bitesize pieces)
• Pineapple (chopped into long chunks)
• Dried enswa white ants – don’t forget  to ask for the recipe!
• Salt-dried Angara fish
• Wooden mortar and pestle
• … and bucket after bucket of dried beans of different colours

9.   Visit Miriadua Falls along the Arua – Koboko road

“I know, great pic but some dude is blocking the view!” Gerard posing at Miriadua Falls, near Arua, so named by Gerard’s uncle

Gerard Iga writes: “I have a personal attachment to this one since it was my very own uncle that named the falls after himself. He was the county chief of Maracha in colonial times. When he went to visit this place, he asked the locals what the falls were called and they said “Iyi Kuru” which literally means “rough flowing waters”. Since all over Lugbara land, such falls are called iyi kuru, he decided to name them after himself and that is the name by which the place is known everywhere else except the locality. There, people still call it iyi kuru.”

Miriadua Falls are a 20 minute journey outside Arua Town.

10.   Enter inside Uganda’s smallest church! Near Goli, Nebbi

Imagine … a church that “can only accommodate three people, including the preacher.” What a great place to get married (and keep down the cost of your wedding!)

Surely Uganda’s smallest church, at Goli, near Nebbi, West Nile

I’d heard rumours that this is “the smallest church in the world” but I can’t seem to verify it – it certainly is petite though, according to my travel writer friend Solomon Oleny. The muzungu failed to reach… the church on Biku Hill is near Nebbi, a good hour’s travel from Arua.

How to get to Arua, West Nile

Fly to Arua

Currently, Eagle Air is the only operator to fly scheduled flights to Arua. They fly 3 times a week between Entebbe and Arua.

Eagle Air flies 3 times a week between Entebbe and Arua.

A new web site is being developed but their Kampala office staff say the 2014 timetable is still correct. They are efficient in person e.g. at Kampala office in Portal Avenue. Tel +256 (0)414 344292 / +256 (0)772 777338/7  and +256 (0)752 793860.

Remember to have your 5,000 UGX to pay airport tax. You pay it twice if you have a return ticket

The current Arua Airstrip building. The compound (of other buildings) includes clean toilets and a cafe cum bar that serves tea, beer and sodas

Arua Airstrip is being developed to take bigger planes. The new airport building (to the right) has yet to open to the public

The new airstrip should be a real boon for trade with the DRC. Will commercial flights open up West Nile to tourism too? I heard rumours of Kenya Airways and RwandAir… let’s see!

Take the bus to Arua

A number of bus companies supply Arua with daily services. Generally, the standard daytime bus costs 30k UGX and the executive (overnight) bus costs 50k. They all depart from Arua Park, downtown Kampala.

Contacts in Arua recommend the executive Gaaga bus which runs overnight and has reclining seats. KKT are ‘more reliable than Gaaga’ according to another source. California bus company started up last year. Nile Coach is an old school provider that ‘overpacks vehicles.’

If your bus (or car) stops at Kafu, en route to Arua, think twice before you eat the roasted ‘muchomo’ meat!

How to get around Arua town

Bodas in Arua are cheap and everywhere. Expect to pay 1,000 – 1,500 UGX (less than 50 US cents) for town journeys. If you don’t have the right money, you won’t have to argue to get your change. Refreshing. (I am constantly overcharged in Kampala!)

Arua is a very pleasant town to walk around. Main roads have good wide pavements (and the boda drivers do not seem to drive on them either!)

The 4km taxi journey from the airport cost me 10,000 ugx. By boda, it cost me just 2,000 UGX.

When to visit Arua

Arua is at an altitude of 1,200 metres meaning nights can be cooler than in most places in Uganda.

Generally expect:

April to June – lighter rains; August – cold, day and night; August to October – heavier rains;

December to Feb / March – cold mornings, very hot in the day, warm at night.

A few words of Lugbara, one of the local languages

Mi efu ngoni – good morning [mifun-GO-ney]

Mi ngoni – how are you? [min-GO-ney]

Awadifo – thanks [awad-if-O]

I love exploring new parts of Uganda and learning a few words of local language.  But in West Nile, as soon as I got the hang of greeting somebody in Lugbara, I was told that we were in a different district where a whole range of other languages and dialects are spoken!

Awadifo!

I was drawn to the northern region of West Nile and Arua town by the lure of a tourism ‘familiarisation’ trip with Inside West Nile. I really had a great time.

Thanks to Kampala House Harriers (KH3) for finally getting me to Arua – an invitation I most definitely could not ignore! My Arua trip included three days of fun supplied by KH3. Read that story here “Nagawa – you cowardised!” A detour via the Congo.

A big thank you to Dolorence Were of USDC Uganda Society for Disabled Children for letting me transfer the Eagle Air ticket (that my friend won in the USDC fundraiser raffle) into my name.

Have you visited Arua? When was the last time you visited ? What are your favourite things to do in Arua?