Uganda, lake
Lake Bunyonyi
Twenty-nine islands, terraced hills and cold water with nothing in it that bites
About Lake Bunyonyi
Lake Bunyonyi lies eight kilometres west of Kabale at nearly 1,960 metres, a long irregular sheet of water with twenty-nine islands in it and terraced Bakiga hillsides running up from the shore on every side. The name means the place of many little birds, and on a still morning the water is glass and the loudest thing on it is a paddle.
The practical reason it appears on almost every south-western itinerary is that you can swim in it. There are no crocodiles, there are no hippos, and it has a long-standing reputation as free of bilharzia. After a week of parks where getting into the water is out of the question, that matters more than it sounds. The water is cold, because you are at nearly two thousand metres, and it stays somewhere in the low twenties all year.
It is also the standard decompression stop. Coming down from a gorilla trek in the southern Bwindi sectors, Bunyonyi is ninety minutes to two hours away, and two nights here in a dugout canoe with nothing scheduled is what most people want after five days of early starts. It is not a wildlife destination and does not pretend to be.
What it actually is
Bunyonyi is routinely described as a crater lake and it is not one. There is no crater. The lake was formed when a lava flow off the Virunga volcanoes to the south dammed the valley of the Ndego river, probably a few thousand years ago, and the water backed up into the side valleys of the drowned river system. That is why the shape is so irregular, why the arms wander for kilometres, and why the twenty-nine islands are the tops of the old ridges rather than anything volcanic. It matters because it explains the landscape you are looking at.
Swimming, and the cold
The claim every operator makes about Bunyonyi is that it is free of crocodiles, hippos and bilharzia, and unlike most such claims it holds up. There are no crocodiles and no hippos in the lake, and the lodges, the schools and the villages around it swim in it as a matter of routine. What nobody mentions is the temperature. At nearly 1,960 metres the water sits in the low twenties in every month and it takes your breath on the way in, and the swim across to the nearest island is longer than it looks from the shore because the air is clear and distances flatten. Go with a canoe alongside you if you are swimming any distance.
The depth question
You will be told that Bunyonyi is 900 metres deep and the second deepest lake in Africa. There is no published bathymetric survey that supports it, other sources put the deepest point at a small fraction of that, and the figure appears to have propagated from guidebook to guidebook without anyone measuring anything. It is a good story and it is not evidence. What is not in doubt is that the lake is deep enough in the main channels to be cold and clear, and that the shallow arms are where the birds are.
The islands, and Punishment Island
Akampene, known as Punishment Island, is a bare scrap of land with a single tree on it, and the Bakiga used to abandon unmarried pregnant girls there to starve or drown. Some were taken off by men who could not afford a bride price. The practice ended within living memory and there are women alive who were left there. Guides will take you to it and some will make a light story of it; it is not one, and it is worth asking your boatman what he actually knows rather than accepting the version for tourists.
Bwama, the largest island, held a leprosy treatment centre founded by the British doctor Leonard Sharp in 1931, and the buildings are now a school. Njuyeera, the small island beside it, was Sharp’s own house. Bushara and Bucuranuka have community and lodge accommodation and are the ones most visitors sleep on.
Getting on the water, and what it costs
There is no park, no authority and no gate fee at Bunyonyi. Everything on the water is arranged through the lodges at Rutinda and along the shore, or directly with boatmen at the Rutinda landing. A dugout canoe hired for a few hours costs very little and is set by whoever owns the canoe; the dugouts are unstable and turn in circles until you get the stroke, which is a local joke and also true. A motorboat with a boatman for an island circuit costs a good deal more and is negotiated at the landing, and the going rate moves with fuel. Every figure is local, indicative and worth agreeing before you get in.
Beyond the water there are hill walks up the terraces to Arcadia and other viewpoints, a market at Rutinda, and Batwa community projects on the western shore that are best visited through a lodge that works with them regularly rather than on a cold call. Crayfish appear on every menu around the lake; they are the introduced Louisiana crayfish, they arrived in the last century, and they are now a real local income.
What people come here for
- Swimming in a lake with no crocodiles, no hippos and no bilharzia, at nearly 1,960 metres
- A dugout canoe on the water at first light, when the mist sits in the arms of the lake
- Twenty-nine islands, including Bwama and the 1931 leprosy hospital that is now a school
- Akampene, Punishment Island, and the history the light version leaves out
- Terraced Bakiga hillsides and the walk up to the ridge viewpoints above Rutinda
- Ninety minutes from the southern Bwindi sectors, which makes it the obvious stop after a trek
- Crayfish on every menu, introduced within the last century and now a working local industry
What lives here
Resident species, not a promise. Wildlife moves.
- Spot-necked otter
- Grey crowned crane
- African black duck
- Long-tailed cormorant
- Malachite kingfisher
- Pied kingfisher
- Red-chested sunbird
- Levaillant’s cisticola
- Slender-billed weaver
- Louisiana crayfish, introduced
Best time to visit
Bunyonyi works in every month and the seasons here change the drive rather than the lake. June to August and December to February are the drier windows, the murram from Kabale is firm and the swimming is at its most pleasant. March to May and September to November bring rain, usually as heavy afternoon storms rather than all-day weather, the terraces are at their greenest and the lodge rates fall. It is cold at this altitude in every month and the nights are genuinely cold from June to August, so bring a fleece regardless of what the rest of your Uganda packing list says. Mist sitting in the arms of the lake at first light is the thing to get up for, and it happens most often in the wet months.
Getting there
Kabale is the hub and Bunyonyi is eight kilometres west of it on a short murram road that takes twenty to thirty minutes to the Rutinda landing. By road from Kampala it is seven to eight hours to Kabale via Masaka and Mbarara on tarmac, and most people break that drive at Lake Mburo rather than doing it in one push. From the southern Bwindi sectors at Rushaga and Nkuringo it is ninety minutes to two hours, and from Buhoma in the north three to four. Kisoro and Mgahinga are about ninety minutes south-west. The Katuna border into Rwanda is twenty-five kilometres from Kabale and Kigali is roughly three and a half hours beyond it, which is why Bunyonyi is often the last Ugandan night before a Kigali departure.
Tell us when you want to be here
We will say honestly what is available on your dates, what the permits cost and whether the season suits what you want to do in Lake Bunyonyi.