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Green Bunyoni

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Day 285

We sat down for breakfast and ordered a rolex for breakfast, not as expensive as the watch but much more tasty.  A rolex is a Ugandan specialty, a roti rolled and filled with eggs and onions and such.  Simply put it’s an omelette wrapped in a roti and real good and a great starter for the day.  Today we were heading to Lake Bunyoni which is just outside the town of Kabale.  The region here is incredible lush, green and scenic.  It reminds us both of Southeast Asia and is one of the most beautiful parts of Africa we’ve seen to date, that combined with the lack of mass tourism here makes for a more authentic experience than anywhere else in  East Africa we’ve been.

We walked out of Edirisa, onto the muddy street down to Boonya Amagara.  A guesthouse that also runs a place on an island on Lake Bunyoni.  We’d read about Amagara from a small posting on the wall of the hostel in Kampala, it was started by a man from New York as a non-profit project that hoped to involve the local community in the management of the guesthouse.  It sounded a bit like Bulungula, the fantastic place we stayed at in South Africa, just not as developed yet.  It was only a few years old so it would be interesting to see the progress of the project and of course enjoying the beautifully surroundings.  We asked the Kabale location to call the island to insure they had a room for us and we also would have to arrange a boat to the island.  Everything was set and we headed back to Edirisa to pack up and head out to the lake.

I successfully avoided the piles of mud today and we hailed a taxi from the main street.  Once again our driver asked us about our wheat production when he discovered we were from Canada.  The taxi curved along the red dirt road with green terraced hillsides on each side of us falling down the mountainsides.  We stopped at the lakes edge at a small wooden building that was where the boat to Amagara was docked.  Did I say boat?  Well actually a canoe and a dugout one at that.  Jordana and I carefully stepped in the very rocky canoe for the 1 hour paddle to the island.  We could have opted for a motor boat but the self-paddle option was free and more environmentally friendly.  A young guy was at the back of the canoe to steer us, Jordana in the middle and myself at the front.  Since there was only one paddle between the two of us I elected to give Jordana some sun tanning time and I took the paddle.

The lake was incredible, so still and surrounded with green mountains, I was excited for our time here and instantly was already thinking we had to stay longer than our original plan of 2 or 3 nights.  We glided along the lake and arrived to a small hand painted wooden sign, “Welcome to Boonya Amagara”.  We climbed the steep hillside up to the reception area which doubled as a restaurant.  We were warmly greeted by the staff and shown to our room, we had booked a “geodome”, we had no idea what to expect.  We were led down a walkway and then up a set of stairs to a round grass roofed structure.  “Where’s the door?”  My first reaction and I think Jordana’s as well.  There was no front door, the dome was built on a large wood platform and the front was wide open to a stunning view of the lake down below.  The interior was large and we had a comfortable bed with a mosquito net draped over top.  Outside to the left was the coolest part, the toilets.  On one side was a toilet and beside it a urinal, the toilets are self composting.  On the opposite side was a wooden structure with a shower head at the top.  A beautiful rain shower that pumped lake water up here by solar power.  I’ve never had such a view from a toilet of shower before.  You might be asking yourself if people could see us.  Well no, the geodome is raised high enough and behind trees so that nobody can see in and there are strict rules that you do not walk up to one of the domes.  This was maybe the most unique and beautiful place we have ever stayed, it took about 2 minutes to completely fall in love with the place.

We walked up to the restaurant and enjoyed some amazing food for lunch, with good food and being on such a beautiful peaceful island it would be hard to leave one day.  Only a handful of families live on the island, which is really tiny.  There is no electricity and of course no cars and little motorised traffic goes by on the lake.  We spent the rest of the day just staring out at the calm lake, reading back at our room and doing laundry.  To think we almost didn’t come here, neither of us have felt so relaxed and at ease for a long time.  From Edirisa to Amagara it was great to be staying in such positive places, where tourism is trying to make a difference and not just a buck.