Can you still find Authentic Africa Today?
In Search of Authentic Africa on Safari – Does it Still Exist?
Can you still find Africa as you imagined it in the 21st Century?
In Search of Authentic Africa on Safari in Uganda. Can you still find Authentic Africa on Safari in Uganda? The quest begins with your definition of Authentic Africa – of Real Africa. Seeing Authentic Africa, the continent as it used to be in the 21st Century, is becoming a fast-fading memory found in books and films but today rarely experienced on the beaten tourist path. There are still a few places, even in Uganda. But they will always be off-of the-beaten Tourist Path.
To most Authentic, Real Africa means Tribes, People Groups, Villages, Wildlife, Scenery, untouched by commercialization and Mass Tourism. Most Cultural Encounters come in the form planned, commercialized Village and Walks and Visits, interactive encounters that are reproductions of what once was but now are a cultural performance and not the authentic cultural experience you are looking for or even imagined it to be.
Can you still find Authentic Africa with its culture and traditional ways? Yes, but each year it becomes harder to find. As Tourism expands, the path to what you might see and experience is further, sometimes as in Uganda, harder to find and certainly off of the beaten way on the road, in most cases, less Traveled.
In Search of Authentic Africa on Safari in Uganda. One of the best areas where one can still find the Africa that 
used to be, as you imagine it to be, is n the remote Karamoja Region of Northeast Uganda on the border with Kenya and South Sudan. Most Ugandan Presidents, including the British, ignored the Karamoja Region. President Museveni took a more hands-on approach, even appointing his wife as the Minister of Karamoja.
The Karamojong, fierce Warrior- Pastoralists were disarmed, the area was secured, and today is safe to travel. The region is also home to one of the most remote and unvisited parks in East Africa, Kidepo Valley Park. However, the park has received all kinds of accolades, including one the Best Park on the continent, by the Wanderlust Movement. Rated Number 3 Park on the Continent by CNN, it has less than ten new visitors enter it each day, and on a game drive or hike you will encounter no other people the abundant and varied wildlife found here.
There are also other people groups found here, such as the Ik People who live on the extinct Volcano, Mount Morungole. There is no road, only a path and a visit to them will take a whole day, the views of the Mountains and the Rift Valley are breathtaking. Still, the real Authentic Experience begins as you enter one of the villages of 11,000 remaining Ik, communities without stores, without most semblances of modernity, where the Bride’s Price are Beehives.
Off-the-Beaten-Path
Authentic Africa, as you imagined, can still be found in Uganda. It is a long and arduous journey. The best way is to travel through the region and take in some of the hidden-away places found along the Route that takes you along rugged Eastern and Northeastern Uganda. A journey that you will never forget. You can fly to Kidepo, it is expensive, and you miss what you came for.
Reality:
If you are coming to find the Africa that Winston Churchill encountered during his 1907 African Journey, you will be disappointed. You will not find it. Neither will you find Africa as described by Karen Blixen or Beryl Markham, even that of Ernest Hemingway. They are history, may evoke feelings of nostalgia that get you here, but the continent is changing daily.
In Search of Authentic Africa is a matter of interpretation as to what is Authentic:
Uganda and Rwanda have a lot in common, including culture, people, and a shared border. Yet no two countries could be further apart from each other.
Rwanda is on a quest to be the Singaporean Wunderkind of Africa. Moving around Kigali, you have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that you are in Africa. It certainly is not Africa that most imagine. If anything, it is the exact opposite. Rwanda to me is the Africa of the future.
The Authentic “what Africa can be country.” Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, is the face of future authentic Africa.
Many love visiting “Remarkable Rwanda,” and it has become a high-end, luxury Safari and prominent Convention Destination that more and more meets and exceeds international standards.
Rwanda offers another, most attractive look at the African Continent that defies the conventional view of the continent at large.
Uganda, since 1986 under the leadership of Yoweri Museveni, has steadily moved towards its destiny as an African Nation. Development is a permanent part of what is called in Uganda as wealth creation, and a repeat visitor can readily see the progress in cities such as Kampala, Entebbe, and Jinja.
Ugandans might speak the best English on the continent, yet there are parks and places where the Africa that you are looking ford can still be found off-the-beaten-Tourist paths without the crowds.
Uganda’s Tourism Sector has mushroomed with a drastic increase of tourists drawn because the country offers affordability, including for Luxury Travelers. Gorilla Permits are $800 less than in higher-priced Rwanda.
Yet Uganda, unlike Rwanda, offers you places where you can find the Africa that you imagine, only better. Safari experiences as they were 50-years ago but with much-improved transportation and lodging.
It is all a matter of expectations, wishes, desires. You have to choose the experience that you are looking for on your Safari.
In Search of Authentic Africa on Safari in Uganda- Here is our Take:
We have taken quite a few clients on an Africa as it used to be on a Safari to the remote Karamoja Region of Northeast Uganda. A park with many Cultural and Natural Wonders including Kidepo Valley Park that one renown Photographer called “A lost Eden.”
If you are searching for the Authentic, we just might be able to help you and take you to a region of Uganda, which today is as Africa was 50 Years ago.
The magical continent of Karen Blixen, Ernest, Beryl Markham, Winston Churchill, and others.
Most come to Uganda to see the Mountain Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Wildlife and scenery. A few come to have what is called an authentic experience. The Real Question that has to be asked, “What does Authentic Africa” mean to you?
Please contact us if you want to discover Authentic Africa in Uganda
