Up and on the road by 5:30am to catch the big bus out of Ft. Portal down to Kabale which is where Lake Bunyonyi is (close to Rwanda and Congo). Bus arrived around 8:00am, actually left around 9:30am… I love getting up before the sun for no real reason (in fact I didn’t even get a seat on the bus and had to sit on the floor for 3 or more hours). Was so late because of something to do with the government (we were told), and so late leaving because the driver decided to do some tire repairs at the gas station. sigh…
The concept of time in Africa is enough to drive any sane Westerner crazy; it doesn’t even seem to phase a local having to wait 4 hours to leave on a bus. It took Tom an hour yesterday morning to get 2 pieces of toast and a cup of instant coffee. I’ve yet to see a local complain about how long something takes; it makes us tourists look really whiney sometimes. Drove across the equator around noon, but didn’t have my camera out for it… apparently you can swim across it at a spot on Lake Victoria. Arrived at Lake Bunyonyi around 6pm – only 5 hours later than we had expected.
Coming into Kabali was beautiful; everything just seemed to turn into Lord of the Rings over the course of 30 minutes. Stayed on an island at a camp run by a snarley American guy; had some of the best and the worst service in Africa. Managed to get one of the geo-domes overlooking the lake which was fantastic!!
Day 2 at the camp, decided to take a couple dugout canoes back to the dock to where a market is every Monday. Usually when us whiteys use them, the locals call it the “mzungu corkscrew”. They’re DIFFICULT. Jen, Alissa and myself actually managed to do the 50 minute trek in just over an hour; Tom, Steph and another girl had to turn back around 1/3 the way. I was pretty impressed with us as we proudly pulled the canoe ashore at the market… getting back to the island, people were baffled by how we did it 🙂
Swam on a daily basis which was very refreshing; funny how we were told to always avoid freshwater in Africa, but everytime we get somewhere with freshwater we’re told it’s safe to swim in.
Didn’t do much else on the island except relax, eat and watch the odd movie. After the 4th night, Alissa decided she was gonna leave for Rwanda and when paying the bill realized the guy charged her for taking a “Lake Shower”… found it strange he was so upset about using soap in the lake when his drainless showers were built on the side of a hill, 30ft from the shore. Anyway, the other 4 of us didn’t really like the way he dealt with it at all so we decided to leave too. Spent 1 last night on the lake back near the dock and kinda wished we had just gone there to begin with!!
Generally speaking, Africans can’t swim. Even fisherman who spend most their lives in boats, are usually afraid of the water. There was a great sign at the dock: “SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. Lake Bunyonyi is one of the deepest lakes in Uganda and reaches depths of over 5000ft!” … like a 10ft deep lake wouldn’t be enough to kill someone who can’t swim…
Said our goodbyes to Tom and Steph the next morning then went to town, waited through a lineup of 30 – 40 people to get money from the 1 ATM in town. Said our goodbyes to Alissa and left her standing at the bus stop bound for Rwanda, Jen and I hopped on a different bus and made a hasty decision to stay on the bus all the way back to Kampala instead of trying to take a ferry across Lake Victoria to get to Tanzania. From Kampala we could take one 20 hour bus through Kenya, to Arusha, Tanzania which is where all the safaris start from…
Lake Bunyonyi canoes
Canoe ride to market
View from dining area
Couple shot
Girls on way back
Lake Bunyonyi shore