Entangled in the escarpments of Bundibugyo district the Sempaya hot spring in the Semiliki valley originate from the Semiliki River which forms an international boundary of Uganda and DR Congo, this river is in the Albertine Rift valley beneath Bundibugyo escarpments and it flows from Lake Edward and pours in Lake Albert that’s always streaming with a lot of wildlife.
Sempaya Hot Springs consist of steamy water jetting out of the ground with a strong pungent smell of hydrogen sulphide, boiling at 103 degrees Celsius. The hot springs are in two places where by on is referred to a male and the other a female; the male hot spring is called Bitende and is approximately 12 meters in width.
While the female hot spring is called Nyasimbi and it gushes out water approximately 2 meters in the air. A local group of people called the Bamanga take the hot springs to be so sacred because they believe there are gods that stay at this place and they believe its existence is all about them. Because they believe the gods here are female, pregnant women come and pray for safe deliveries while others come and pray for fertility so as to get ease in finding pregnancy.
Sacrifices and offerings are made at these hot springs in form of slaughtering animals and throwing coins in the springs. Besides that, at these boiling springs, edibles like eggs, cassava, banana and others are put to boil into the springs. At the male hot springs, here men dominate the place.
Like women believe the gods are at the Female springs, the men too believe the gods of wealth are at the male spring and here they do worship so as the gods to favour them too. Other people believe that the salty waters here are a cure to skin infections so they use it for that case.
The path that leads to the hot springs goes through the forest whereby there is an opportunity to see various animals like the grey-cheeked mangabeys, the red tailed monkeys, the white and black colobus monkeys, also birds can be spotted such as red rumped, black dwarf hornbill, the yellow-throated nicator, shining blue kingfisher, blue-breasted kingfisher, yellow throated tinker bird and the eight forest hornbills.
