Uganda’s most magnificent Hot springs-Sempaya Hot springs are situated in Semliki National park, in the remote corner of Bundibugyo district on the Uganda-Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border, in the Western arm of the Great Rift Valley.
Semliki National Park spans at 220 square kilometers (85 square miles/22000 hectares) and was established into a National Park in October 1993, making it one of the newest gazetted National Parks in Uganda.
The breathtaking Sempaya hot springs can boil at a very high temperature of up to 103 celcius degrees and can boil an egg within 5-10 minutes. Sempaya Hot springs have a gush bombarding up to 2 meters from a broad hole of about 8 meters, and boil up from a rock bottom of the earth, hence exhibiting the enormous geological forces that have for many years ago formed the Rift Valley. Sempaya hot springs are located in two places, with the first one being male, named “Mumbuga” (most historical and spectacular) and the other one is the female named “Nyansimbi” and these hot springs are the main reason as to why tourists visit Semliki National Park.
The Indigenous Bamaga Clan members that surround the Hot springs have their folklore story about the existence of these hot springs. It is believed that the Bamaga women had gone to collect firewood from the Forest when they saw a hairy man dressed in bark cloth handling a spear, and with a dog moving around the same position in a zigzag pattern. This scared the women who ran back home to inform their husbands about what they encountered, and their husbands decided to pick and take the mysterious man to their village and eventually found for him a wife from the village.
This man was later known as “Biteete” and continued hunting but one day he never went back home. After three days of not seeing him, the men from the village decided to venture on a search for him and it is at the present day location of the Male hot spring that they only found the spear which he had apparently used for hunting, but no signs of the man or his dog. It is believed that he disappeared at the exact spot and went back to inform his wife called Nyansimbi who also entered the forest and never to come back. In the next search (for Nyansimbi), only her clothes were discovered at the current spot of the female hot spring. This is how these two hot springs came to be known as male and female hot springs and until now, the Bamaga clan still believe that their female forefathers have their homes underneath the female hot spring whereas their male forefathers have their residence at the male hot spring. It is for this reason that the Bamaga still perform rituals every year at the hot springs to appease their ancestors by throwing coins and slaughtering animals, and the Management of Semliki National Park (Uganda Wildlife Authority) authorizes them to enter the Park. Pregnant women visit the female hot spring to pray for safe delivery while the barren ones go to pray for fertility. The male hot spring that is always associated with wealth is where the men also pray and perform rites to gratify their ancestors.
A walk to the Male hot spring leads tourists through a spot of the woodland where primates such as the Red-tailed Monkeys, Grey-cheeked Mangabeys and the Black and white Colobus monkeys. Nevertheless, a 30-60 minute walk through the Palm forest from the main road leads to the Inner Female hot spring. When you visit these two magnificent hot springs, you can boil eggs (for 5-10 minutes) or bananas and consume straight away.
From the scientific point of view, hot springs are features formed by an appearance of geothermal heated beneath water from the earth’s layer. The intense heat of the rocks beneath the earth upsurge with deepness, and when water penetrates abundantly deep into the earth’s crust, it is heated when it comes in touch with the tremendously hot rocks. Hot springs are made of openings unfurling deep towards the extraordinarily hot temperatures of the earth layer, and water oozing down is heated and enforced back with tremendous pressure to produce bubbles, hence the hot springs that you see. However, the scientific explanations of the formation of these hot springs are not as enticing as the cultural explanation.
In conclusion, the Sempaya hot springs are some of the interesting attractions within Semliki National Park and add to the other 8 primate species, 400 bird species and over 300 species of butterflies that call this Park home.