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Mountains Of The Moon

These fabled mist covered mountains have fascinated travellers for millennia. Around 500 BC the Greek poet Aeschylus wrote of " Egypt nurtured by the snows ". Not to be outdone, Aristotle in 350BC, declared the source of the Nile to be " The Silver Mountain ". An account of a journey to the Ruwenzori was written by the Syrian geographer Marinus of Tyre in AD 120. He related the tale of a Greek merchant, Diogenes who claimed a 25 day journey inland from the African East coast to " two great lakes and the snowy range of mountains where the Nile draws it's twin sources " The mystery began to clear after the mountains were sighted, in the far distance, by Henry Morton Stanley in 1876. Once the existance of the peaks was confirmed scientists began to explore the interior of the range, and, in 1906, the Duke d'Abruzzi led a party that ascended the main summits of the range.

Kitandra Lakes

The Mountains

The mystery remains, for this is a unique environment. The constant warm mist enables plants and animals to grow to gigantic size, for example, an earthworm can be over an inch in diameter. Giant groundsel, lobelia and heather are found up to almost 4,000m. These mountains are the only place I've seen that makes you feel that you are on another planet, for this is a surreal and beautiful land, So, with this as our map, we set off into the hills, to climb Mount Stanley, 5,109m. We bought a cheap ticket to Nairobi and took bush taxi's to Busia and crossed into Uganda. Having set off early in the morning, we made it into Kampala at dusk. After stocking up in the markets, we took the bus to Kasese, close to the roadhead in Imbanda.

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