Sunday August 22, 2010 – Goodbye to Bwindi, lunch up high in the Mountains, and a boat ride to Byoona Amagara

Sunday August 22, 2010 – Goodbye to Bwindi, lunch up high in the Mountains, and a boat ride to Byoona Amagara


Fred’s instructions to Isaac seemed to work and there was thankfully no “hodi” at the door first thing in the morning. Once organized we all traipsed across the road and had breakfast at the Community Bandas, where we are now accepted regulars. The flush toilets and the food make an irresistible combination. John, Dorothy and Saul were just heading off on the next leg of their birding odyssey – John has a totally serious excel spread sheet of birds that might be found – with colour coding as well. Jan and I are most impressed, this is serious birding. After breakfast the girls load up the vehicle with our stuff and Jan’s bags – Isaac has washed the outside of it and it looks great – hardly recognizable as the same dust and mud-covered 4x4 we drove in on. Jan, Fred and I pay our respects to the Park Warden, who chats for a bit about changes in head office and how they may affect the working of the park. Business as usual for now but there are certainly concerns for the future. Isaac seems convinced I am going to help support his children’s school education, at least according to what he told Elizabeth. Fred would be horrified if he knew Issac had been asking his guests for money. It’s a classic story – Isaac recognizes the public school system is not giving his child the heads up a private school would, is having trouble paying the regular school costs and has no money for private schools, but still intends to have at least 5 children. None of whom will probably receive the education he would like them to get.
And off we go to final destination Lake Bunyonyi – but the road is by no means direct, and again is pretty bumpy and tortuous. Fred is driving into Kisoro for errands (only 5 hours of so) so we follow him for the first part, he was very intent on making sure we didn’t miss any of the tricky points although the road is pretty well marked. We exit the park, wave to the strip of souvenir shops, and then it’s a combination of community land and travelling in and along the the edge of Bwindi. It’s all steep hills and switchbacks, with terraced fields in the community sections and incredible forest in the park. Superficially it looks like tropical rain forest in Central America, but on closer inspection the trees and the animals would be all wrong. At one point we stop as there is a troop of colobus in the trees above the road, only to see a second group of blue monkeys off to the side as well. There is something in the soil here that changes to an incredibly fine powder so as we travel along the road there is an incredible dist plume behind us, which occasionally catches up and envelops us if we have to slow for a particularly awkward bit of road. Fortunately the smell of rat has pretty much leached out of the ventilation system so we can put up the windows and turn on the A/C when the dust gets too much for us. About 3 hours later, and maybe 40 km, we stop in Ruhija for lunch at the Volcanos Lodge – way up on a hill overlooking a broad valley. The view is quite spectacular. Lunch is served in style, and quite promptly, giving us a nice break from the bumping and the dust.
The final stage is about 40 odd km again – the last 23 of which are on tar. But it takes us a good few hours to get there, passing through the park again for a stretch before dropping out of the hills and into the flatter lowlands. Being on tar is great – but 60 km and hour seems like excessive speed after all the hours (days) driving on the unpaved or murram roads. We’re happy to get there – Sarah has been having her first really bad day of the trip so far – upset tummy, sleep deprived, and kind of upset over the fact that we have an extra person in the car and that Elizabeth is sharing her backseat domain. I guess we are lucky that she has been so good for so long.
At the lakeside there is a sign for Byoona Amagara parking where we unload our stuff, place the car in the shade, and then load into a small open motorboat for the 15 min trip to the island where the resort is located. We could have travelled for 50 minutes in a dugout canoe instead, and saved a grand total of 15,000 shillings ($7.50) but no one is in the mood for that. Crayfish are a local delicacy, although the guy on the dock totally puts us off by demonstrating what a live crayfish looks like, and then twisting its tail off and peeling it to show the meat while the rest of the crayfish lies twitching on the dock. Not appreciated by this audience! The boat trip is smooth and easy, along the very convoluted shoreline where there are scattered resorts and villages. Kingfishers and cormorants abound, and there are crowned cranes grazing on the sloping shorelines.
The resort is interesting – a series of flagstone paths leads up from the dock and the shoreline to the open air reception and restaurant, and then up and around to the dorms, bathrooms, and the geodomes. We are booked in a regular and a “deluxe” geodome according to availability. Jan has the regular geodome, with two single beds, and we have the deluxe which actually comes with a double and a single bed and its own little compound with a large deck looking over the water, and our own bathroom and shower area, complete with solar heated water. The geodomes are made of reed and have open fronts facing the lake – they are quite clever in design and very attractive and spacious. The toilets here are of the composting ones, modified long-drops but with a proper seat which makes it so much easier for Sarah to handle. All surrounded by trees and filled with chirping and singing birds. Pretty lovely.
We decide it’s half-beer o’clock and wet our whistles while perusing the menu – which has an amazing variety of really good looking food. There is a small craft sale area, and a variety of activities that one can take part in – including canoe rides, community tours, and trips around the lake. We are happy to plant and relax for the two night we will be here. Sarah has a pain in her thigh, for which we can see no actual lesion, and has decided that surgery will probably be necessary. She asks if Elizabeth can help give her the injections. We have a great dinner by candlelit lanterns, and then put Sarah to bed and retire to our deck with glasses of amarula to admire the full moon and listen to the drums from an adjacent village. A perfect end to a long and not quite so perfect day.