Igongo Cultural Centre

Igongo sits on the Mbarara highway at Biharwe and combines a museum, a hotel and a restaurant serving regional food, built to record the history of the Ankole and wider western region. The Eriijukiro museum covers the Bacwezi, the kingdoms, and above all the cattle culture of the Bahima, whose long-horned Ankole cattle are the region's defining image. The Biharwe eclipse monument nearby marks a solar eclipse of 1520 recorded in oral tradition.

What you actually see

• The Eriijukiro museum - the regional collection on kingdoms, clans and cattle.
• The Ankole cattle - the long-horned breed at the centre of Bahima culture.
• The Biharwe eclipse site - the monument to a solar eclipse recorded in oral tradition.
• The regional restaurant - food of the western region served on site.

When to go

Year round; the museum keeps daily hours. It is a standard stop on the drive between Kampala and the southwest. Weekends are busier.

Honest expectations

It is a commercial complex with a hotel and restaurant attached and the museum is one part of it. Displays are modest in scale. It works better as a break on a long drive than a destination.

Nearby

Mbarara is west, and Lake Mburo is east.