Lake Bunyoni

Canoeing is fun. Canoeing to your next destination, with the trip having a purpose – getting you from A to B – is even more fun. Tyson, Claire and I were paddling our way inside a hollowed out tree across Lake Bunyoni, towards an island a few kilometres away. Tyson worked for the lodge we were making our way towards and his job was partly to help canoe guests from the dock at one side of the lake, to the dock at Byoona Amagara Island Retreat. Before we left we were offered the motorboat – which you had to pay for – or the free canoe. We opted, obviously, for the canoe, and an hour and ten minutes later we were pulling up at our destination. The trip was fun, but the wind was against us, blowing right in our faces, slowing us down considerably.

The night before, at Bwindi Backpackers Lodge, as we were waiting for our dinner, we were treated to some dancing performed by the local children. And, similar to our time at Miryante Orphans Home, after a few songs, the kids had us up dancing. We were particularly enjoying watching a small girl in the middle of the group who must have been no older than three and knew very little of the moves. She was very sweet and we couldn’t take our eyes of her attempting to keep up with the others with her sleeves that were too long for her short arms. See the video below. Claire and I were joined at the dance by Eric, a Swedish film student we met that afternoon.

The next morning we left the lodge after breakfast, getting a three hour ride down the mountain on some of the bumpiest roads we have ever seen. In fact, the owner of the lodge acknowledged these roads calling the bumpy ride an ‘African Massage’. Our driver dropped us off at the small pontoon and we were off canoeing across this beautiful lake surrounded on all sides by tall hills, forests and farmland. Along the way Tyson informed us that the lake is the second deepest lake in Africa and the third deepest lake in the world. It was, he said, 900m deep in places. He also advised us to try the lake’s crayfish once we made it to our destination.

Lake Bunyoni is situated at 2000m above sea level, which is hard to believe when you’re on it. The air is slightly thin, but the surrounding countryside is as green as the rest of Uganda. We spent the first two days here at Byoona Amagara lodge relaxing, drinking coffee, sitting by the lakeside, playing chess on yet another makeshift chess set – two scrabble pieces, P’s to be precise, were being used as pawns and the rest of the pieces were made up of at least four different chess sets – and reading. In fact, I managed to read Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in a-day-and-a-half, which goes to show not only how much chill time we were indulging in, but also how gripping a book it is. A real gem. And then, in another two days, I completed Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie, another fascinating book that flew by.

Improvised chess set

Earlier on I used the line ‘canoeing is fun’. I now retract that statement wholeheartedly. Canoeing is not always fun. In fact, there are times when canoeing is the opposite of fun. Claire and I decided to rent out a canoe for half a day. It only cost like £1.20, so we thought, why not go for a paddle around the lake? What proceeded to happen was this. We jumped in a carved out tree canoe, one of the ones we used to approach the island on our arrival. We then proceeded to paddle out into the lake, spin around for fifteen minutes before heading back in to the dock to swap places – maybe that would help? So we made our way back in, almost entangling ourselves in the long grass on the bank, before switching places. This helped, slightly. Twenty minutes later and we had made it to the other side of the lake – about 300 metres away. However, once here, we merely span around again, before cutting our losses and heading back in. I feel that Tyson had a larger influence on our journey here than we had first imagined…

We met some lovely people during our chill out on Lake Bunyoni. Chrissy, an interesting Irish girl and Doreun, a nice French girl who was teaching French in Rwanda, after spending a time teaching French to the Ethiopian military. We hung out with these two on our first two nights, and Doreun taught us to play the aggressive card game Le Battole du Corsica. After these two left, Claire and I spent the next two nights hanging out with three Canadian nurses who had been working at a hospital in Zambia, one of our hopeful destinations, before making their way up to Uganda. They were pretty much doing the same trip as us but in reverse so had some nice tips for us along the way. Gabriel, Leah and Amy also played our new card game with us which resulted in Claire scratching the hands of most of them with her long nails – the game involves slamming your hands down at various intervals to claim cards as your own. We spent the best part of two days with these three before departing the island – by speed boat this time – to head onto the next leg of our trip.