Sempaya Hot Springs

The entry fee to visit tourist locations in this country is determined by various factors, one of which is nationality. I did qualify for the "rest of Africa" category but I had no documentary evidence in my possession when purchasing the entry ticket, that I was not an American pretending to be an African. So the man said, "Now speak like a Nigerian let me hear". So I said, "Oga, you sef, na wa, which one you dey.." Then everyone burst out laughing, including the man himself. 

Okay, so I got my ticket as "the rest of Africa", but it was still five times more expensive than the "East African national" ticket.

Sempaya Hot Springs are striking geothermal features located in Semuliki National Park in the Bundibugyo District of western Uganda.

Female Spring (Nyasimbi): Features a boiling geyser that shoots water over 100°C about 2 meters into the air. Visitors often use the extreme heat to boil eggs and plantains.

Male Spring (Biteete): A calmer, wider pool about 12 meters across surrounded by swamp vegetation and palm trees.

Cultural Significance: Held sacred by the indigenous Bamaga clan, who believe their ancestors live beneath the springs and perform annual rituals there. The shrine where these indigenous people perform their traditional rites and rituals has been preserved right next to the hot springs.

Semuliki National Park, a 220-square kilometres protected lowland tropical rainforest located in the Bundibugyo District of western Uganda, is the only lowland tropical rainforest in East Africa, serving as an eastern extension of the vast Congo Basin's Ituri Forest. It is one of the richest areas of floral and faunal biodiversity in Africa, with bird and butterfly species being especially diverse. The park is managed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority.

The area of Semuliki National Park is a distinct ecosystem within the larger Albertine Rift ecosystem. Most of the plant and animal species in the park are also found in the Congo Basin forests, with many of these species reaching the eastern limit of their range in Semuliki National Park.

The Science: The water at the Sempaya Hot Springs boils at such extreme temperatures—up to 103°C (217°F)—because of the intense geothermal forces hidden beneath the Semuliki Valley.

The scientific mechanism behind why this water boils involves several key geological factors.

1. High-Pressure Underground Heating

Rainwater and river runoff from the nearby Rwenzori Mountains seep deep into the earth's crust through porous rock and deep fractures. As the water travels kilometres downwards, it approaches incredibly hot rocks near the earth's mantle.

Because the water is trapped deep underground beneath a heavy column of water and rock, it is subjected to immense pressure. This pressure acts like a natural pressure cooker, allowing the water to become "superheated" far past its normal surface boiling point without turning into steam.

2. Deep Fault Lines of the East African Rift

The Sempaya Hot Springs are located right inside the Western branch of the East African Rift System. In this region, the earth's tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart, thinning the crust and creating deep fractures and fault lines. These faults act as open pathways that allow the superheated water to rise rapidly back to the surface.

3. The "Flash" Effect at the Surface

As the superheated water rapidly ascends through the fissures, the surrounding physical pressure drops. When it finally nears the surface, the sudden drop in pressure causes the superheated water to violently "flash" into actual steam and boiling water. This is why the female spring (Nyansimbi) forcefully spurts a geyser of boiling water up to 2 meters into the air with a constant bubbling and sizzling sound.

4. Mineral Elevation of the Boiling Point

Pure water at sea level boils at exactly 100°C. However, Sempaya's waters are heavily saturated with dissolved minerals and salts (like sodium chloride and sulfur) leached from deep subterranean rocks. These dissolved minerals physically elevate the boiling point of the fluid, which is why temperatures at the vent can consistently register slightly above normal at 103°C.

Impact on the Human Population: The forests in the park are of great socio-economic importance to the human communities that live near the park. The local people practise subsistence agriculture and use the park's forests to supplement their livelihoods. Some of the products they obtain from the forests include fruits and vegetables, herbal medicines, and construction materials. The local population is increasing at a rate of 3.4 percent per year. The high population density and declining agricultural productivity combined with an unavailability of alternative sources of income means the local population is dependent on the park's resources. The forest also plays an important cultural and spiritual role in local people. The forests are also the home of approximately 100 Great Lakes Twa people, an indigenous community who still largely live as hunter-gatherers. Tourism provides the Batwa people with additional income.

Note: The Great Lakes Twa, also known as Batwa (singular Mutwa), Abatwa or Ge-Sera, are a Bantu speaking group native to the African Great Lakes region on the border of Central Africa and East Africa. As an indigenous pygmy people, the Twa are generally assumed to be the oldest surviving population of the Great Lakes region. Current populations of Great Lakes Twa people live in the states of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2000, they numbered approximately 80,000 people, making them a significant minority group in these countries.

Past practices of the managing authorities that excluded the local people created resentment among them. This reduced the effectiveness of conservation practices and contributed to the occurrence of illegal activities. Since the 1990s, the Ugandan Wildlife Authority has involved the local communities in park planning.

She was the park ranger assigned to be our guide

Another Icelandic explosion?

We have just seen more than 100,000 flights grounded across Europe and a beleaguered airline industry frantically trying to restore to itself the confidence of hundreds of thousands of hapless, stranded travellers. We have witnessed perishable fresh produce rotting away in warehouses in far flung locations such as in the Caribbean, South America and Africa, for want of transport to consumer markets in Europe. Businesses and schools have been disrupted, business meetings have been cancelled.

And all this because one relatively small volcano in Iceland erupted in icy conditions, causing huge volumes of ash to be produced, the ash cloud rising high into the atmosphere. The wind direction too by coincidence was such that it guaranteed that this ash cloud would drift across most of northern Europe. One week later, we are only now just starting to breathe a sigh of relief that this immense disruption has come to an end. But there is another fact that we must be aware of.

And the fact is this: A far bigger Icelandic volcano, Katla, is tipped to erupt in the following months, potentially causing much more severe and sustained disruption to industry and to society as a whole. Eyjafjallajokul erupted last week and records show that each time Eyjafjallajokul has erupted in the last 2,000 years - in the year 920, in 1612 and between 1821 and 1823, Katla has exploded within six months.

The ash from the Eyjafjallajokul eruption was sent to such high altitudes because the ice on top of the mountain melted as the volcano erupted and the mixture of cold melt water and lava caused explosions, which in turn shot the volcanic ash high up into the air. The ash cloud drifted far across Europe because of the high altitude to which the ash had been shot.

Katla however is ten times the size of Eyjafjallajokul, with a correspondingly larger ice field. Were Katla to erupt, there undoubtedly will be shot high into the atmosphere larger amounts of ash than we saw with Eyjafjallajokul, with even more serious disruption the likely outcome, if the winds were blowing in roughly the same direction as with the recent Eyjafjallajokul eruption.

"I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Katla erupted within the next year, but how much it affects Britain and northern Europe depends on what happens with the winds at the time," the volcanologist Bill McGuire told The Independent newspaper.

Bill McGuire is a professor of earth sciences at UCL and widely accepted as one of Britain's leading volcanologists, whose main interests include monitoring volcanoes and global geophysical events. He is a bona fide authority on the subject of volcanoes and his advice is for airlines to start from now to draw up contingency plans. However, it is obvious that not very much can be done if the airspace is taken over by a volcanic ash cloud. What perhaps businesses could consider is to stock up on supplies early on. And travellers could have a rethink about whether they really need to make that trip.

There are jokes being passed around that the volcanic ash is a hidden agenda by the Green movement to limit unnecessary flights. Some have even said that the ash cloud is Iceland's reprisal against Britain for demanding repayment from Iceland of the billions of pounds paid by the British government in compensation to customers of Iceland's failed banks.

Mother Nature clears her throat

Mother Nature clears her throat, and we humans in all our arrogance, are humbled.

The bolts of lightning appearing in the plume of the ash-spewing Eyjafjallajokull volcano are pretty to look at, but the truth is that the process that creates this kind of lightning in erupting volcanoes remains something of a mystery. Lightning, which is usually associated with severe weather such as thunderstorms, hurricanes and the like, is also produced by the rolling debris clouds of volcanoes.

It is thought that the lightning in a volcanic plume is connected to the rotation that these hot gases and ash undergo, sort of like a tornado. As a plume rotates, it can spawn waterspouts or dust devils, which gather together the electric charges in the plume to form a sheath of lightning.

Lol, I'm not an expert, obviously, but I've been doing some reading and you can join me by having a look at this site.

All in all this ash cloud business has become rather a nuisance. I did see a few vapour trails of aircraft flying over London today, but the explanation came when I heard that some other European countries had opened their airspace to aviation and that these were aircraft flying across Britain from the European continent, possibly towards North America and vice versa. I learnt also that a few airports in Scotland and the north of England and in Northern Ireland had opened, but only very few aircraft movements had been reported.

Then I was pleased this evening to hear of several British Airways long-haul flights from all around the world headed for London, even though UK airspace remained officially closed and many of the earlier flights bound for London had been diverted to Madrid instead, from where weary travellers were left to make their own way across Spain and France to the channel port of Calais so as to board a ferry to Dover, (if they could manage to get a place on the ferry that is).

But there was then a report that a BA 747 had just touched down at Heathrow, with live footage to boot. Shortly after these pictures were shown, the 10 O'clock news, which had begun with the announcement that UK airspace was still closed and was not expected to reopen before tomorrow morning, ended with the surprising announcement that the airspace was now officially open. What a difference half an hour can make!

So now, we should all feel better that the end to this chaos is finally in sight. But lets not ignore the important lessons that this has taught us, the first being that the world is totally unprepared for an event such as this. Especially, when one considers that this Icelandic volcano is only a minor volcano.

Bauchi Harmattan Sunrise

It's really the sun up there. This photo was taken on a particularly dusty morning somewhere east of Yankari Game Reserve in Bauchi State, Northern Nigeria.

The Harmattan is a dry and dusty West African trade wind. It blows south from the Sahara Desert into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. On its passage over the desert it picks up fine dust particles (between 0.5 and 10 micrometres). When the Harmattan blows hard, it can push dust and sand all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean and South America.