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Write a User ReviewPian Upe: Land Of The Karamojong
Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve lies in the Karamoja region of Northeast Uganda. This area had security issues until quite recently, but it is now safe and being developed for tourism. On my quick visit in the region, I found very little wildlife present. I guess the area isn’t very well protected and poaching is rampant. The road network is also very limited. The Karamojong people of this region are traditional nomadic pastoralists. A visit to one of their villages near the base of Mount Kadam or Mount Moroto is recommended, and maybe a more valid reason to come up to this remote corner of the country than a safari.
Empty Plains Below Majestic Mt Elgon
Despite being the second-largest protected area in Uganda after Murchison Falls, this undeveloped reserve has little to recommend it as a safari destination. I found the scenery memorable, with the immense Mt Elgon rising to 4,321m in the south and the bleak volcanic plugs of Mt Kadam to the north of dry plains covered in acacia scrub. Also of interest are the two staunchly pastoralist groups for which it is named: the Pian being part of a subgroup of the cattle-rustling Karimojong, and the Upe, a Kalenjin-speaking people more widely referred to as the Pokot within Kenya. However, wildlife is thin on the ground, and while leopard, cheetah, plains zebra, buffalo, eland, hartebeest, greater kudu and topi are all reputedly present, we didn’t see any along the limited public road system. On the plus side, we had some good sightings of the localised patas monkey, and the dry plains harbour several dry-country birds with a restricted distribution in Uganda, for instance ostrich, Jackson’s hornbill and white-headed buffalo weaver.
An Altogether Different Country
Pian is one of the few places in Uganda where you can see cheetah, Bohor reedbuck, ostrich, klipspringer and roan antelope. Our bird-monitoring team added greyish eagle owl, endemic Karamoja apalis and stone partridges to their life lists.
On my last trip to Pian Upe, we drove mile after mile of dusty red marram roads, as (slow) works were underway to tarmac the road. Thankfully, we had a plan (and a guide who spoke one of the local languages). Without one, you’ll find few tourism facilities, but changes are afoot. Nubian giraffes have been reintroduced, the airstrip at Kidepo is being worked on, and the reserve is due for an upgrade to national park status. I’m curious to return for longer: not only to search for