Tenting at Lake Bunyoni

Once we made it to Kabale, Uganda, we took a short cab ride out to Lake Bunyoni. As always, cab drivers are most willing to take you anywhere. We hired a cab that would take us up to the lake.

As we made our way over the hills, the car gave out. It stopped. We looked at each other. The driver tells us no worries. He tries to drive up the hill again. Nope. So we hop out and we start to push. Nope. This was starting to get hilarious. He popped the hood, started unscrewing the spark plugs and takes a good look at them. He then turns to us and says, "Its the spark plugs." He then pulls off the hose feeding the engine with gasoline and gives each spark plug a good bath in the stuff. He screws them back in, connects the petrol line and then tries the engine. It starts, but only crawls up the hill. We walk behind for a bit. Then the car picks up speed and takes off up the hill out of sight. We look at each other, again.

Now we are stuck walking up a hill, laughing out of complete surprise. We hale down the next car that turns out to be a 4WD. In it, 3 men on their way to the lake as well. We hop in and we tell them our story. Once up the hill we see our cab. We ask to stop and proceed to unload the cab with our things and take the 4WD to the lake. But the cab driver still wants his full share of the fare. No way. He gets a good piece of it though.

Back in the 4WD we find out that the front passenger is from Cameroon and is having a conference at a resort on the Lake. The passenger sitting next to us is the resort manager. We think we've struck gold. We even get to use our French. They take us to the resort and invite us to stay. We ask the price and find out its the same for everyone with no discount or any chance of bargaining. However, the location is beautiful and the room is a tent on stilts overlooking the lake. It comes with two beds and a telephone. To keep the cost down we decide to keep one of us on the floor.

Just as we checked in our cab driver friend shows up and says, "You forgot this." He's holding Lindsey's sleeping bag. Now he wants all of his fare. After some discussion we end up giving it to him. Such dedication.

The lake is beautiful and well worth the visit. There are so many birds. I spent one morning sitting on the porch overlooking the lake and watching hundreds of birds.

We met some friends from South Africa on holiday and sat by the fire to chat. Carla and Lindsey headed out for some canoeing the next day after we all got caught in a down pour. Soaked to the bones.

Our next stop was to be Kigali, Rwanda two days later.