Caro: There is such high demand for gorilla permits, sometimes tour groups’ allocations of permits are spread over several days. Because of this our trip itinerary allocated 3 nights in Ruhengeri – but we’d managed to get all of our permits on one day, so we were able to leave Ruhengeri a day early. We were all sad to leave Rwanda – but hitting the road early had the advantage of cutting down a couple of big drive days down to a few more moderate drives. So today we decided to drive back to Lake Bunyoni. This time we were approaching the lake from the far side so we arranged a boat trip to take us the 30km down the lake, while Emily, Matt and Denford drove the truck around the lake, and shopped for groceries in town.
The man who took us was a font of knowledge about all sorts of things – including the Ugandan pygmys (about 1% of the population); the leper colony that used to be on one of the islands of the lake – now a tourist resort, the church missions who treated the lepers, the island where unmarried pregnant girls used to be banished etc. etc. It took us about 90 minutes to make our way down the lake, and was a nice bonus.
Tim and I decided to upgrade at Lake Bunyoni – so we got ourselves a “chalet tent” – a tent on a wooden platform with beds and electricity, a verandah, a view, and a hammock! It was great to get everything charged (we have charging available on the truck – but it runs off the truck battery so is only available when the truck is running – and with twenty people sharing four sockets, and an array of cameras phones, ipods and laptops it’s in demand!).
The rest of the day was spent swimming in the lake and then relaxing in the bar. Somewhere along the line it turned into enormous night which ended in the wee hours around the pool table, where our group challenged each other to many a game – and we were dominated by the locals, due mainly to their sobriety but also their grasp of the quirks of the frankly warped table. Next day the bar staff were effusive in their thanks for such a good night (and the tips) – which was nice!
