Idi Amin is all most people know about the place, but that is their loss, Uganda is Africa condensed, with the best of everything the continent has to offer packed into one small but stunning country.

Green covers most of Uganda and its landscape of rolling hills and verdant fields. To the southwest, the hills become mountains and rise to the jagged Virunga volcanoes on the Rwandan and Democratic Republic of Congo borders. Water is another dominant feature in the landscape; the mighty Nile begins its journey in Jinja and cuts across the country.

Much of the north is a world apart, however: arid desert and scrubland getting steadily more desolate as they merge with the mountains of southern Sudan.

The country is so fertile; you almost feel that if you dropped something from your pocket a dozen of it would spring up from the earth. The landscape also has great contrasts, from the towering green volcanoes in the southwest, to the ochre rock bluffs of the northeast.

Uganda’s wildlife was decimated during the long years of civil strife. Rhinos were wiped out and other mammals suffered a huge drop in numbers.