Semuliki National Park is famed for the picturesque Sempaya Hot Springs where tourists are happy to use the backdrop of the crystal white waters when taking photographs and videos.
The hot springs have high temperatures of up to 100 degrees Celsius and are hot enough to boil eggs which is the art of the adventure for travelers that are mesmerized by the natural attraction located about 30 minutes’ walk from the main road into the forest tracks of Semuliki National Park.
Once you are at the springs, you can witness the force, strength, and hotness of these springs and their natural and rare underground geographical forces that are classified as both males, locally known as Biteete, and is approximately 12 meters in width while the female hot spring is locally known as Nyansimbi and it gushes out water approximately two meters in the air.
According to Bamaga folklore, local women spotted an unknown man with a spear and a dog in the forest. The men of the village brought the man home and he then married one of the women.
But one day he failed to return from hunting. All that was found, his spear next to what is now known as the ‘male’ hot spring. Fables and legends about an imaginary spring that gives everlasting life to whoever drinks from it are heard worldwide.
Uganda boasts of some seven major hot springs that attract several tourists on their visit to Uganda safaris, namely Kitagata Hot Springs, Sempaya hot spring, Rwagimba hot spring, Amoropii Hot Springs, Burring hot springs, Ihamba hot springs and Kibiro hot springs.
Some of these hot springs are traditionally believed by the local communities to have healing powers. Most local communities around the hot springs believe that it has divine powers and perform miracles.
As such, some people worship them while others bathe in them for healing therapy. Semuliki, located in western Uganda, the park lies in the Semuliki Valley where the land is low and flat.
The Semuliki River marks the western boundary of the park and the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) arm of the Rift Valley just below the northern ranges of the Ruwenzori Mountains, in Bundibugyo District.
Semuliki is the only park in Uganda that is primarily composed of tropical lowland forests that are characterized by clearings of grassland, bits of swamp, isolated stands of oil palm, acacia, or ironwood, and glimpses of bamboo swamp.
In there, you will find wildlife too, including elephants, buffalo, leopards, civets, scaly-tailed flying squirrels, bush baby, hippo, and crocodile as well as black-and-white colobus, red-tailed monkey, baboons, and vervet monkey. It is a birder’s destination too with approximately 400 species of birds.
