Lake Bunyonyi

Bunyonyi means place of many little birds, and the lake sits at 1,962 metres among some of the most intensively terraced hillsides in Africa. It is probably the second-deepest lake on the continent, and its 29 islands each carry a story, Punishment Island (where unmarried pregnant girls were once abandoned) being the one every guide tells.

Crucially for safari planning, Bunyonyi has no crocodiles, no hippos and no bilharzia. It is one of very few lakes in the region where you can simply swim, which is why it has become the standard recovery night after a hard day's gorilla trekking in Bwindi.

Days here are deliberately slow: a dugout canoe between islands, a walk through the terraces to a village market, a boat to the Batwa community on the far shore, and otherwise a chair and a view.

Highlights

• Dugout canoe trips between the 29 islands
• Safe swimming with no bilharzia, crocs or hippo
• Terraced-hillside walks and village markets
• Batwa community visits
• The natural rest night after Bwindi

Best time to visit

Year-round. June–August and December–February are driest; the green season leaves the terraces a startling colour.

Getting there

About 8km from Kabale town, two to three hours from Bwindi's southern sectors and roughly three hours from the Rwandan border at Katuna.