Travel Guide Masindi

During the first half of the 20th century, the city played an important role in the region's trade routes: via the port of Butiaba on Lake Albert, it allowed the movement of goods from the Belgian Congo and Sudan, which it could then transport via Masindi Port (on the Nile), Lake Kyoga and the Soroti railway station to Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast. The reverse was true: goods landed on the coast could be transported by the same route to the Congo and Sudan. The city also received famous visitors such as Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, who filmed African Queen in the region, and, a few years later, Ernest Hemingway. But from the 1960s onwards, the town declined. At first, the decline of the Uganda Railway made it impossible to trade with Kenya, which led to the decline of Butiaba. Then, the small city was influenced by the Amin dictatorship and the whole economy was destroyed. Today, the sub-regional political instability and the vitality of new trade routes do not allow Masindi to become again the import-export centre it once was. As a result, the town is rather sleepy and serves little more than a stopover for travellers on their way to Murchison Falls National Park. The upcoming oil development in the Lake Albert Basin could, however, revitalize the port of Butiaba and the region in general.