Blogs from Lake Bunyonyi, Western Region, Uganda, Africa

Today was a boat trip on Lake Bunyoni, the second deepest lake in Africa. A local guide, Johnson came to our accommodation and walked us down to an open, wooden boat with a motor and another guy doing the driving. It was market day, so many people had arrived by boat to buy food and clothes. Some come from Rwanda to sell clothes and shoes and buy food. We were stared at a lot and even more self conscious, as we were the only people on boats made to wear life jackets. Johnson, a guy in his 40s that looked older, pointed out the most expensive places to stay on the lake: Birdnest which is owned by a Belgian and costs $200 per night and Bunyoni Safari Resort which was huge and out of keeping with ... read more

Uganda day 5 Quite the to-do in Uganda I’m exhausted from confusion today. Is that possible? Let’s start at the very beginning. At 4:30 I had to get up for a wee and there was a baby lizard on the bathroom door. Which was nice. I then convinced myself that the alarm was going off at 5 and so struggled to get back to sleep before realising we were having a lie-in until 5:30. At 5:30 Claire ignored the first alarm and stirred when the second one went off 5 minutes later. We packed up all our stuff and carried it across the field. On the way I noticed that the waterbucks had read my blog yesterday about them not having any babies and there were a few youngsters about. That was quick! It was sad ... read more

After arriving back to my lodge yesterday from my tour of the lake, the heavy rains started again, and didn't stop for about 24 hours. Around the same time as yesterday, the rains came to a stop, so I decided to do another tour of the lake, this time to visit a Twa community; the Twa are better known as pygmies. Heavily discriminated against, and violence directed at them by other local tribes, the Twa tend to isolate themselves to isolated areas, where they farm and hunt to sustain themselves. They've also opened up their villages to tourists, where they show you their huts, the school, perform a song and dance routine, show you how skilled they are with a bow and arrow, then try to get you to buy their crafts, or at least give ... read more

Un repos bien mérité avant la dernière ligne droite de notre périple en Ouganda. Ce week-end, nous avons atterri au lac Bunyonyi dans le district de Kabale. Après avoir passé 3 heures sur des chemins irréguliers (« massage africain »), secouées dans tous les sens, nous débarquons au bord du lac. Une barque nous attend pour nous diriger vers notre île. Le décor est magnifique. ??? Quelques heures après notre arrivée nous embarquons pour une sacré expérience. ? Munies de rames et d’un canoe traditionnel, seules, nous essayons de naviguer sur les eaux du lac. Comment dire ? Nous avons au moins eu le mérite d’essayer… Nous savons tourner, même très bien. Mais aller tout droit ? Nous n’avons pas encore compris le truc. Nous avons surtout compris pourquoi nous sommes nées dans les montagnes valaisannes ... read more

Nothing super special about Kampala, yet, but the internet was pretty alright at the campsite. The next day we arrived at Lake Bunyoni after a million hours and I was feeling quite under the weather. Our guide was ill when we started the trip from Nairobi and I was the first to catch what she had. It was also New Year’s Eve so being sort of sick was extra not fun. We had gorilla trekking permits waiting for us when we arrived and my name was on the list to trek in the am. This again was not conducive to my sickness because you are not allowed to trek if you are sick as the man monkeys have 98% similarities to humans so they can catch our diseases too. Buuuuut I traded with someone else and ... read more