Source of the Nile — white-water rafting, bungee, and Lake Victoria sunsets
Jinja is Uganda's second city and the adventure capital of East Africa — the town sits at the source of the White Nile on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, where John Hanning Speke determined in 1862 that the Nile began. The Nile's exit from Lake Victoria produces Class 4–5 rapids that have made Jinja the leading white-water rafting destination in Africa; bungee jumping over the Nile, kayaking, and kayak surfing are the other draws. The colonial-era downtown on the lake bluff, the Owen Falls Dam, and the source monument on a rock outcrop in the Nile channel are the historical anchors for a…
The area around Lake Victoria's northern shore was one of the most densely settled parts of the Great Lakes region before European contact — the Busoga kingdom controlled the lake fishing and the crossing points. John Hanning Speke's 1862 'discovery' of the Nile source (standing at Ripon Falls, now submerged under Owen Falls Dam) was one of the defining moments of Victorian exploration. Jinja was developed by the British as Uganda's industrial capital — the Owen Falls Dam (1954) generated electricity for both Uganda and Kenya, and Indian-Ugandan textile and sugar mills made it Uganda's most e…