Expert Reviews of Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve (3 Reviews)

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.

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