For hundreds of years, explorers from all over the world wondered: where exactly does the Nile begin? In 1858, a British explorer named John Hanning Speke arrived at the northern shore of Lake Victoria and worked out the answer. The water that becomes the Nile starts inside this huge lake.
From Jinja, the river travels north through Uganda, then through South Sudan, then through Sudan, and finally through Egypt - flowing past pyramids that are thousands of years old. After 6,650 kilometres it pours into the Mediterranean Sea near the city of Alexandria. A single raindrop falling into Lake Victoria might take three months to reach the sea.
Near the source, the river is wide and lively, full of birds and small fishing boats. A few kilometres downstream, it crashes down a series of rocks called the Bujagali rapids. Beyond that, it becomes calm again and winds slowly north between green hills.
Uganda has built a small park at the exact spot in Jinja where the Nile leaves the lake. Visitors can stand on a viewing platform and look at the place where, depending on how you think about it, the world's longest river either ends a lake or begins a river. Either way, it is one of the most famous spots in all of Africa.