On Good Friday, Christina and I took advantage of the very
prolonged Easter Holiday and headed about 4 hours southwest to Lake
Bunyonyi. The lake holds a collection of
islands and is situated just a hair above the Rwandan border. I had heard the lake was beautiful and
offered some good outdoor activity; with that plus its relatively close
location we decided to head out.
We went to the hospital early that morning, and then our
“private hire” Dale picked us up at the compound. We briefly had entertained the idea of
taking a public bus to the Lake, but once we saw the quality of the roads
paired with the Forrest Gump-like torrential rains we encountered along the
way, were happy we decided against it.
Dale kept exclaiming how pleased he was that the roads were much
improved since last time he traveled them.
I would hate to see what they were like before!
As our Toyota lurched over speed humps and sidled over
12-inch drop offs, I just kept trying to prevent my head from whacking the side
window. From time to time we would
encounter a road block: sometimes it was a big truck stuck in the muddy road,
other times it was cows being herded to market for the Easter holiday. We couldn’t see much scenery other than swift
clay-colored water moving past the tires until the weather finally cleared a
few hours out. Then we were greeted by
the “Swaziland of Uganda” as Dale called it.
I’ve never been to Swaziland, but now figure I probably should. Uganda is one of the most beautiful places I’ve
traveled, but this took it to a new level. There were so many shades of green that my
eyes got blurry after a few minutes of looking out the window. The mountains surrounding us were just ever
so slightly lighter green than the grass, and peasant farmers had marked out
their plots of land by thin rows of banana trees marching down the mountain
side. The steepness would easily cause
erosion in the heavy rains, so the folks living there had carved terraces in
the side where the planted their crops and perched their one-room homes.
The increasing altitude made my ears pop and the dropping
temperatures were quickly noticeable.
We passed through several villages along the way and saw hundreds of
people walking along the sides of the roads carrying crosses. Some were large and elaborate others small
and obviously handmade out of papyrus or banana leaves. Assuming it was related to the holiday, I
asked Dale to explain. He said that this
is a Good Friday tradition where people carry their handmade crosses some
distance, to show they have suffered as Jesus had. I kept wondering to myself why they felt they
needed to this to show suffering, when I’ve already seen so much while I’ve
been here.
When we arrived at Bunyonyi Overland Camp we were greeted at
the gate by another one of those blue suit guards with a rifle. Fortunately my name was on the list (i.e., my
24-hour prior reservation actually worked) and we drove in. The receptionist was the only unfriendly
Ugandan I’ve ever met, and he gave us the keys to “tent 15”. I didn’t really know what to expect, but we
got lucky! We had a beautiful tarp tent
that zipped and even locked, with two twin beds and towels, and a lake front
view! Pretty amazing.
We were starving by the time we got there, and headed up the
hill to the buffet dinner. It took a few
minutes to actually walk up the hill because the elevation at Bunyonyi is 6,437
feet, but once we made it dinner was lovely.
There was crayfish masala, vegetable curry, and of course rice and
chapatti. However, we were tricked because we thought the buffet was 8,000
shillings and were surprised to get the bill for 28,000 shillings! We were upset until we did the math and
realized we had dinner and drinks for about $13 each. After dinner we were pooped, and got ready
for bed. I feel asleep quickly but woke
up around 3am to the sound of scratching on the roof of our tent. I turned on my flashlight and was happy to
find that whatever it was was on the outside and not the inside. I could see the roof of the tent bouncing as
it moved and scratched around. Perhaps
it saw my light because it then moved over to my side of the tent, scratched a
while, and then fell off and ran away.
By my guess at its size and the fact that it likely had toenails, I was
excitedly hoping it was a monkey. But
then we asked the staff and they explained monkeys don’t live in Bunyoni, so it
was likely just a rat. At least it
wasn’t inside!
Despite the interruption in sleep, the next morning we woke
up ready to greet the day. Breakfast was
served and we had omelets, toast, and more fruit than you could shake a stick
at. The powdered coffee, well, tasted
like powdered coffee. But it gave me a
boost for our outing. Previously we had
read about all the different islands in the lake and had picked three we wanted
to travel to. The choices are either
rowing your own canoe or hiring a local fisherman to take you on their motorboat. Being adventurous we obviously decided to do
it ourselves, so after breakfast we puffed our way up the hill to registration
where we excitedly asked to rent a canoe.
He non-excitedly obliged but unfortunately didn’t have a map for us to
use to navigate toward Bushara island, the biggest of the ones we wanted to
see. He then stated, “you should not go
to these islands. It is too far, and you
might get caught in a windstorm”. We
sheepishly stated we wouldn’t go, then he led us down the hill to a row dugout
canoes. By “dugout canoe”, I mean that
these used to be giant trees subsequently chopped down with their insides
removed, so all that remains is a thin shell just big enough for someone’s
behind. We (un)gracefully got in, trying
to not tip ourselves over at the very beginning, and then the gentleman shoved
us off into the lake.
Soon thereafter we realized steering a dugout canoe is one
of the more difficult outdoor activities that exists. Because the bottom is so wide and really
doesn’t have much shape to it, any effort in steering would easily cause the
canoe to overcorrect. And if a strong
wind or motorboat came by and left a wake behind it, we turned around in
circles like we were in a whirlpool.
Reportedly that’s called the “muzungu circle”, and is why every
motorboat that passed us was full of muzungus, and every canoe that past had
locals rowing, speeding along in a perfectly straight line. We finally got the hang of it, though it was
definitely more upper body work than I had done in a while, and paddled out of
the inlet where our lodge was.
Immediately we found ourselves out on the open lake with dozens of
islands equidistance from our canoe. My
trusty guidebook said Bushara was only 30 minutes by canoe ride and was
somewhat developed. The trouble was that
all the islands looked the same distance, and all had at least a few buildings
on them! We decided to pick one and make
that our directional target, hoping that we might somehow see a sign somewhere
along the way. Meanwhile as we would
occasionally need to rest our aching arms and would subsequently have the winds
spin our canoe around in circles. I
suddenly had terrible visions of the torrential rains from the day before
starting, our canoe filling with water and us sinking in the middle of Lake
Bunyonyi. But we kept paddling and the
sun kept shining. Just as we were about
to lose hope that we would ever make it anywhere productive, we hear a
motorboat coming up. We wave them over
and yell, “where is Bushara?!?!”; they laugh and say “you’ve passed it”! Sure enough we had paddled about 100 yards
past Bushara Island, thinking it was just another island covered with
trees. So after a total of 2.5 hours we
got out and were very glad to see land!
We walked up the Eucalyptus Trail to the Bushara Island Camp
and restaurant. This was a more “rugged”
resort if you will, and we ordered lunch while we relaxed our aching
muscles. I had “vegetarian chili” which
turned out to be basically beans and carrots but was delicious, and was a nice
touch on kind of a cool day. After lunch
we had to visit the latrines … which is always a good time … and then we set
out on a hike around the perimeter of the island. This place was a bird-watcher’s paradise. I
don’t know the names of many birds, but there have to be dozens or more of
different types. I even saw a miniature
hummingbird that my camera was unfortunately not quick enough to catch. If you stood still and listened you could
hear at least 10 different birdsongs at any moment. And if you looked around at the leaves they
were all covered in bird poop.
After our hike we found our canoe just as we’d left it;
however, the little man who said he’d be there all day and would help us push
off was missing. So we maneuvered into
the canoe and pushed off ourselves.
Again, somewhat ungracefully, but we made it nonetheless! We briefly considered going to other islands
but were too exhausted so we headed home.
By that time we were dugout canoe pros and the trip back was much
quicker than getting there – only about 45 minutes. When we maneuvered into the landing back at
the resort, I’d like to think that the workers were somewhat impressed with our
canoe navigational skills. At least we
were!
We went back to the tent and collapsed on the beds. That lead to an accidental nap, and after we
woke up we spent a little time reading and then headed up to the restaurant for
dinner. We didn’t want to be fooled
again by the 28K dinner, so we asked what else was cooking. We found out there was a special Easter BBQ
going on, and we could get a 15K plate full of roasted goat or chicken, as well
as matoke (mashed plantains), irish (potatoes) and salad (chopped up
cabbage). We chose that and it was the
right pick! Perhaps it was because I was
exhausted and starving, but that was some of the best chicken I’ve ever
eaten. During dinner the workers started
up a campfire which gave nice ambience, but also made a lot of ashes fall on my
plate. We both kept yawning and
embarrassingly realized it was only about 830, but decided to head down to the
tent and read a while. That lasted about
45 minutes and then I was dead to the world.
This morning we awoke to bird songs and headed up the hill
for the last time for breakfast. I had
beans (kind of weird) and an omelet with fruit, and more powdered coffee. Our driver was there right on time and we
headed back to Mbarara town. On the
drive back we were pondering if we should walk to the city market or not to get
some groceries when we passed a nice roadside market. We pulled over and got our weeks’ worth of
fruits and veggies. Further down the
road I almost had to pull out some of my mangoes as we got stuck in another
traffic jam or two, but a few hours later we made it home (and I realized the effect a bumpy ride can have on bananas). It was a good trip!
