The memory of the long bus journey form Nairobi to Kampala was fresh in my mind and I didn’t fancy another marathon trip to Kigali in Rwanda. I looked at the map and saw a place called Kabale which appeared to be near a lake.
I thought that it would make a nice stopping off place to break the trip in two and have some down time. I took the Jaguar coach from Kampala which was reasonably comfortable but the staff was miserable and there were many broken things on the bus.
Kabale itself is a nasty dirty little place but if you pay a few bucks you can get to the landing stage on the shore of Bunyonyi and it’s worth the effort and expense.
I had booked the Paradise Eco-Lodge through AirBnb and it did not disappoint. The excitement builds on the short boat journey across the lake as the little thatched cottages appear.
Having relaxed in the bar looking out over the lake for a while, I thought I should do something more active. I asked the staff if I could borrow a canoe thinking that they would bring out a lovely bright fibreglass vessel. But oh no – it wasn’t to be that easy. What they produced for me was a dug-out canoe.
Never have I had to paddle one of these and I can tell you now, it’s very hard to steer. I went 360 degrees several times and was quite pleased with msyelf when I eventually made it, by some miracle, to the next island where the school is.
There I met four boys who had paddled there looking for fruit. They were very friendly although their English was dire. I gave one of them the spare Liverpool shorts and shirt I had. He was the right size and said he supported Liverpool so it seemed appropriate. He looked pleased.
The island I was on was fairly small and it didn’t take long to walk around. I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of children playing on neighbouring islands, the sound of birds and insects and sometimes groups of women singing and some drumming.
It really is a paradise where you can get away from it all. Mind you, the road to get there is not as nice. It is extremely dusty and takes you through a forested area where my useless Boda driver ran out of fuel and abandoned me to get more. I flagged down another Boda which took me the rest of the way.
On the way back I got a lift back through the forest with two Germans in their RAV4. En route we picked up a Peruvian cyclist who held on to the car window to get a lift up the hill.
