Lake Bunyonyi: 18th - 20th December

We headed down to Lake Bunyonyi, which is a couple of hours from Mbarara. It is a flooded valley, and the views from our hotel, Arcadia Cottages, were absolutely stunning.

View from the Bar Terrace

View of Lake Bunyoni and some of the Islands

Sunset over the Lake (with a volcano in the background!)

The next day we woke up to the beautiful sight of the mist rising over the lake. We really were above the clouds, and you wouldn't necessarily have known there was a lake below us.

Rising Mist

We decided to do a community walk, which was arranged through the hotel. Our guide Monday (so-named because of the day he was born) took us on a walk right down to the lake, passing alongside fields and houses.

We took a boat trip on the lake to see the different islands, including Punishment Island. This was an island where unmarried pregnant girls were left to die by the Bakiga tribe, unless they could manage to swim to safety (pretty unlikely), as a punishment for what they had done. Any man could go to the island, and take the girl as his wife, without having to pay the usual bride price. A pretty gruesome practice, and it only ended in the first half of the 20th century.

Punishment Island

We stopped off at Bushara Island for a swim and some lunch, before heading back to the mainland to start the steep climb up the hill back to our hotel. We attracted an ever-growing crowd of children, who proceeded to follow us up the hill. Monday took us to a village near the hotel, and we had a walk around. We didn't go into people's houses, which I was very glad about, but we learnt a bit about how the villagers live, and what they grow in the fields etc. We were all extremely tired after the walk (it took about 2 hours to get back up the hill), so were glad to refresh ourselves with a cold Club (beer) when we got back to the hotel.