On the way up the hill there were lots of pine trees. In what looked to me like the fire breaks, people were shovelling the silt into piles. You could see where the rain flashed down the gullies that they created after removing the soil and causing terrible erosion. If the rock was exposed near the road they lit a fire under an overhang to crack hunks of rock off. Nearby were hordes of people with metal hammers cracking the rocks into smaller even sized pieces. There were piles lined up by the side of the road where the graded stones and sand were waiting for buyers to arrive. Dozens of children were also cracking the rocks and both sides of the road were a hive of industry.
The lake was really lovely. There were several islands in the middle of the lake and one was called Prisoner Island. It was pretty small with one dead tree and one live tree. Any woman who got pregnant before she was married was dumped on the island. As most of the women could not swim they died on the island. Other women were rescued by men who couldn't afford a dowry or were too old or no one else wanted to marry.
We met Kath and Mick from the UK who were travelling in their Landrover from London to Cape Town. They enjoyed the lake so much they stayed 7 days. They were kind enough to copy an African travel computer programme with maps for us and we spent a bit of time working out how to use it. It gives us ATMs, restaurants, transport depots and other places of interest in Africa. It could also tell us how far to locations on foot or by car etc. It will certainly be really useful for the rest of our trip.
We also met Paul from Ireland and he had started in Cape Town like us for the World Cup games. John saw him sitting alone and struck up a conversation with him. He turned to John and said I have met you before in Knysna, South Africa. We would never have thought we would have met someone from that far back in our travels.
We took a safari tent which was perched on poles overlooking the lake. Outside the tent was a deck area with tables and chairs and electric plugs and lights. The whole place was covered with a corrugated iron roof which was so practical and comfortable.
We could watch the locals going to and from market in their dugout canoes. We also watched two German guys going round and round in what the locals call 'the muzungu corkscrew'.
We were 2000 metres above sea level so it was a little cool at night but we had warm sunny days. John had his 63rd birthday while we were here and with our local SIM card and dongle we had a lot of data time to do what ever we wanted on the internet. We met an English guy and he managed to get our SKYPE working so we spent a couple of hours talking to our daughter Kerri and her fiance as well as chatting to John's brother Evan.
Several overland trucks stopped at the camp and the lake was busy with younguns jumping off the trees by the lake or swimming across to the other camp opposite us. On the weekend a Ugandan government department had a group stay for a conference so it was pretty busy.
John was happy to join the camp staff in the evenings and watch soccer on TV. We were able to network with a Canadian couple and get information on trekking on Mt Kenya in January.
It was a lovely relaxing time to set us up for the chaos of Kampala.
