March Break in Cartagena

 

Our traditional $12
Pearson Beer

So begins the second entry into this blog. For our first anniversary Marlene and I decided to get away from the bitterly cold, snowy and sun-deprived city of Toronto for the white sand beaches, topaz blue waters and warm Caribbean breezes of historic Cartagena. This trip was not on the scale of grandeur as our "honeymoon" vacation to Africa but incredible none the less. 

We finally arrived to this most beautiful of back yard gardens

Since it was March break (peak travel season) the cheapest flight we could find brought us through New York, where we managed to get about 4 hours sleep before having to connect with our 6am flight to Miami.  After a couple hour lay over in Miami we were finally on our way to Colombia on Avianca airline!  Avianca knows what customer service actually means and it was a very enjoyable 3.5 hour flight.  I watched "Inception" but unfortunately due to interruptions and the short duration of the flight I got about 2/3 of the way through the film, the captain turned off the entertainment system just as the movie was getting super interesting...needless to say all I could think about was the movie, that is, until we got out of the tiny spec of an airport.  The immediate reaction to the heat was shock, our bodies were used to the negative Celsius weather of Canada, and our eyes were going to need adjusting to the bright sunshine.

Inside the Walls

The area surrounding the airport immediately brought memories of other South American nations we'd previously visited but once we winded our way through the busy side streets toward the ocean side boulevard we knew this city was going to be much different then anything we'd seen in SA before.  The ocean was deep blue in color and the waves were constantly crashing on the surrounding beaches.  As we approached the "murales", or the walls, I began to get a sense of the history in this place.

Colombian beer and street food

Cartagena is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Colombia's major economic centres.  Cartagena was colonized in 1533 and became an attractive plunder site for pirates due to its wealth and prosperity.

Because of all these attacks, the Spanish created a walled city and built many forts around the city in order to defend their assets.  The Spanish pumped loads of money into the city and in the 17th century paid from prominent military engineers to carry out the construction of fortresses which are some of Cartagena's most significant identifying features today.  The construction took over 200 years to complete and included food and weapons storage as well as underground tunnels.  Once these defenses were complete, the city was considered impregnable and was never overtaken again.  Cartagena was a major trading port for precious metals and was also a slave port.

Watching the sun go down on our first night

Dinner in the open air market of Cartegena

We approached the walls after about 15 minutes of driving along the beautiful coast line and eventually drove through on of the two openings in the wall designed for traffic.  Inside the walls there was a European atmosphere with narrow winding cobble stone streets, street vendors on every corner, and beautiful colonial architecture.  We pulled up to what would be our home for the next 5 nights and were surprised at what lay behind the front gate.  What looked like a very humble structure from the street opened up into a glorious back yard garden.  We were greeted by our very gracious host Lucy who had been expecting us since morning.  After exchange pleasantries Lucy showed us around the property and brought us up to our room.  The room had a double bed and a single bed in it along with a private washroom and a private balcony overlooking the stunning tropical garden complete with caged tropical birds. Lucy offered us some lemonade (which was really Lime-aid) which I was looking forward to since Marlene had been talking about the fresh juices of Colombia since we book our flights.  It more then met my expectations and was exactly what I needed to quench my thirst...after all, it was 30 degrees outside!

 

Our amazing and delicious breakfast fruit juice and platter

Today was more of an opportunity to acclimatize and orient ourselves more then anything else.  After a bit of relaxing time on our balcony sipping on some lime juice and reading through our trusty guide book (lonely planet of course) we decided to venture out and discover the night life of Catagena.  After a much needed and satisfying meat platter dinner (which was probably enough meat and fries for 4 people) and a couple of locally brewed beverages, we were ready to call it a night.  We did take the long way back, though neither of us could say if that was on purpose of if we got slightly lost (slightly).  The streets are reminiscent of Venice (says Marlene) in that the best way to explore its cobble stone streets is to simply travel with no map and just let yourself wander.

The next morning we awoke to glorious sunshine and the blistful chirp of tropical birds...ahhhhenglish and we spoke very little Spanish, and of course, the spoke very quickly.  Marlene seemed to understand more of what she was saying, I think I caught heuvos and pancake...how's that for spanish! Marlene managed to order hers scrambled while I insisted on omelette (same as in french yey!).  Either way both our meals were amazing and breakfast seemed to last for at least an hour...can never get enough fresh fruit right?

Today, our first full day in Colombia, was always meant to be a beach day, and it turned out to be a great day for it (though as we later discovered EVERY day is a good day for it!) We spoke to our lovely host Lucy about our plans and she gave us the low down on the costs and what to ask for once we arrived at the beach.  She called her nephew who is a cab driver to come pick us up and bring us down to the local beach which was no more then 15 minutes away.  Once we got to the beach our instructions were clear, don't pay more then 10K pesos for the tarpa (tent) and make sure the cilos (chairs) were included.  Sure enough they tried to rip us off right after we agreed on what we were getting.  Honestly, there just isn't any sense of integrity around here (sarcasm).  We managed to get what we wanted for no more $ then expected...and honestly we were just so incredibly grateful to be lying in the sunshine watching the waves role up on to the beach that we really couldn't have cared less about the money.

Beach Oysters

Today is a Sunday which means there are lots of local families on the beach.  It wasn't crowded by any means, nowhere near what Miami's beaches are like this time of year but there were long rows of beech umbrellas and lounge chairs in each direction.  With this amount of people also comes large amounts of peddlers offering everything from massages to "fresh" oysters.  The massage ladies were difficult to turn down because they would always insist on giving a "demonstration".  So even though your mind is saying no, your body is saying "this isn't so bad maybe just for 15 minutes".  But I had heard that what begins well doesn't always end well and the massage girls are notorious for ripping off their clients.  They are masters of deception in that they will claim a certain amount for your legs but after they are done they will say "no that price was per leg" etc. Regardless, Marlene and I were constantly turning them down while trying to admire our surroundings and to enjoy our quality time relaxing on the beach.  For whatever reason, the oyster guy was the lucky merchant today as Marlene took to engaging in conversation with him.  This is basically a guy who roles around with a bucket of oysters, a spoon, and a pile of limes.  I was not so interested in trying these local delicacies but after Marlene was brave enough to take the first two and insist they were delicious, I trusted her judgement and decided to try one for myself.  Although I was nervous at first, they really did taste delightful, even refreshing, something about the combination of sea salt and lime was very appealing.  This may have not been the smartest thing to do as travelers, to ingest supposedly fresh raw fish, neither of our gastro systems were punished for taking this risk.  Marlene spent the rest of the afternoon reading while I swam in the waves and took a few tours to see how the other half (rich tourists) lived.  About the only difference was their loungers had cushions, and they had security which didn't allow vendors to come through the designated area.  For now we just thought it would be nice to be away from these vendors, but not a necessity.

After a long day at the beach we returned to our rooms for a hot shower and some refreshments. Our location is so peaceful (and hot) its almost impossible to not have a nap.  We got ready to head out for the night and walked around trying to find several restaurants we read about in our guide book.  Unfortunately we had little success in finding all 3 of the restaurants and decided that either all the restaurants closed down on sundays or maybe our guide book was out of date.  After wandering around for a couple of hours we ended up at a pizza joint right around the corner from our B&B.  This was just a little hole in the wall place which extended its property into the adjacent park.  We could tell by the number of people hanging around this place that it was either the only place open or they served really good pizza.  Both assumptions turned out to be true.  It was a very european influenced occasion, pizza and beer in the park...althought the warm caribean breeze ensured we knew we were not anywhere near Europe.

After a day in the sun and with our bellies full we decided to retire to our room to watch what was becoming a daily ritual.  I had uploaded the second season of Mad Men to my IPOD and we were quickly becoming addicted.

At breakfast the next day, we decided it would be a good day to take a walking tour of the city. We were beginning to realize it didn't matter which day we took this self guided tour because everyday here was like a day in paradise!  28-32 degrees, sunny, with a beautiful ocean breeze.  We started from within the city walls and walked past all of the historical sites identified in our guide book.  Colonial architecture surrounded by tropical flowers and plants are an intensely beautiful contrast. The only trouble was that within the city walls, the cool breeze is unable to penetrate the large buildings.  So navigating busy, narrow streets is a very hot and sweaty experience.  So we decided to head toward the ocean to catch the cool breeze.  This turned out to be worthwhile refreshing experience because it offered beautiful views of Bocca Grande.

Tracking The Gorillas of Bwindi

About half way over the mountain

Today the ultimate journey of a lifetime begins early in the morning.  We have breakfast and pack a day bag with water and protein bars. Our banda is only about a 5 minute walk to where we meet our guides.  There are already a slew of excited trekkers waiting for directions outside of the main office of the park.  Once everyone has arrived the guides give us a briefing of what to expect on our journey, he explains there are 5 groups of gorillas in the surrounding forests and informs us that the previous day (and all week) the trakers have had success in locating all 5 groups.  Basically the way that this gorilla tracking works is the trackers set out about 1 hour before the rest of us, equiped with only 2 way radios and guns, they attempt to retrace their steps from the day before.  They head in the direction that they lost saw the gorillas and attempt to locate where they nested the night before and then determine a direction to set off in.  Once they are located, the trackers radio back and forth to our guides until we reunite with them.  But first we must sit down and watch a video about the gorillas and their protected habitat. 

Our first view of the Gorillas!!

curiosily inspecting the latest visitors

During this briefing we are told about the different groups of gorillas.  There seems to be advantages and disadvantages to seeing all of the different groups.  Nobody has a choice as to which group we will be seeing, but we feel we are very lucky because our group of trackers will be going to see the group of gorillas which has just given birth to a baby gorilla!  We are told that this group is very small in number but the fact that we get to see a 2 or 3 day old gorilla more then makes up for it.  We are also told that within the last couple of days one of the groups has lost a younger male silver back during a turf war with another group.  This is a natural process and thankfully doesn't happen all too often.   We are told that there are approximately 340 gorillas (about half of the entire planet's population) in total in this vast tract of land that spreads deep into the Congo and dips slightly into the Rwandan border. Back in 1997 when the protected area was formed there were about 300 gorillas, so they've seen a modest increase in the species since these efforts to protect them were established.

Bwindi Gorilla eating flower

The briefing finishes with the ground rules of the park.  If we have any sort of illness, we are not to participate in the tracking because the gorillas genetics are so similar to ours that we could pass on our illness/disease.  Lucky for us we're nice and healthy. The other rule is that we are to stay at least 20ft away from them at all times.  We also find out that the group we're going to see has a gorilla in it which is very comfortable with humans and often comes in close proximity to us...if he touches us we are to resist the urge to touch him back.  We are advised that this trek is not a simple task and if anyone wants to hire porters to carry their bags/equipment (there are some seriously professional photographers in our group) or to even carry THEM they can arrange for it.

I'm losing patience with you taking my bed away!! Don't mess with me!

Finally on our way!! After about 30 minutes of walking our guides receive a call from the trackers that they've located our group...they are about 2 hours ahead of us.  We just take our time and enjoy the rain forest and surrounding lush mountains.  For most of this time we are following very well used trails but as soon as we made our way to the bottom of the large hill we just climbed over, our trail becomes more and more dense and less and less clear.  Lucky for us we have two guides out front literally hacking back the brush with giant machettes! 

We ended up walking through some pretty swampy areas where there were obviously tons and tons of bugs, but for some reason the bugs are not bitting us at all.  They are more of a nuisance then a danger.  As we get closer and closer to the gorillas the forest is getting more and more dense, we are now asked to stay as quiet as possible because we don't want to startle them.  Our guides out front start making this very throaty rumbling sound with their mouths, we are told that this is how gorillas who are friendly to the group greet each other.  The gorillas can obviously hear and sense us coming so by doing the friendly greeting we are letting them know we mean them no harm.  Anticipation and excitement is building, at this point Marlene and I are near the back of the group and we are visually told to walk slowly...we can now see the people in the front pointing, smiling and taking photos...as we approach...

Absolutely STUNNING!! This is the greeter gorilla, apparently he is always the first of the gorillas in this group to be spotted and the trackers now know the rest of the group can not be very far from us. The greeter gorilla is just sitting on top of some vines happily eating leaves and flowers.  We are told that the greeter gorilla is very comfortable with humans because he is quite young and he was born after the tourists started coming, meaning he has seen humans almost every single day for his whole life.  He knows they mean no harm to him. The guides tell us that he actually enjoys the company of humans.  The rest of the group is not so happy to see us.  Not that they are afraid or aggressive towards humans but they would rather we just left them alone.

silver back hanging out in Bwindi

As we continue on we catch a glimpse of the large male silverback.  He's very hard to spot in the thick brush but I can just barely see him through my lens as he lays on the ground, on his belly, staring at his finger nails. For the greeter gorilla the guides seem to ignore the 20 ft rule, but for the silver back, nobody want to get any closer then that, nobody wants to challenge his space.  The guides push on past the silver back in search of the momma and new baby gorilla.

We push on through the brush until we finally come across the rest of the group.  We see the momma who is carefully hidding her new born, the adolescent gorilla is sitting nearby guarding the newest member of the group.  When we come across them the mother is very hidden and the adolescent has his back to us.  As we move closer he moves closer to the mother and begins to groom her.  The guides want to give us a better view so they begin pulling and slashing the branches and vines away.  Now we can see them better but the adolescent still has his back to us.

Pondering Bwindi Gorilla

While all this is going on, the silver back has put himself in a position where he can see everything that's happening.  At the moment we are directly between the silver back, the mother and the greeter gorilla. The greeter now begins to move closer to us from behind and next thing I know he's standing less then 5 ft away from us.  Most of the people in the group didn't even notice him come up from behind us because they were too intrigued with mother and baby.  The guides tell us that he is jealous and likes attention.  As Marlene turns to look at him he begins to inch closer and closer to us...until he is literally right beside Marlene.  He looks up at her and rubs up against her leg kind of like a cat.  Although I had the front row seat for this magical event, I was much too close to actually get a good picture of what had happened.  It was certainly one of those moments that none of us will ever forget.  Once he's done gazing at Marlene he comes over to me and literally pushes me out of the way to get by us all. It was unbelievable and neither of us can really describe in words how we felt about that moment.  Of all the things we'd seen and experienced on this trip so far, this had to be the most magical and thrilling thing yet!

Silver back looks on

Eventually our guides managed to get the adolescent to turn around, and got the mother to move.  Unfortunately it was after much agitation and as you can see by this next picture, they were clearly stressed in this moment.  We're not sure how everyone in our group felt about this but Marlene and I felt that the guides had gone too far in their quest to get us a closer and clearer view of the newborn. Although we both have lots of respect for what these locals are doing, we just felt that at that moment they were taking uneccessay steps to get us that money shot. The adolescent actually charged at us for about 5 meters in an attempt to tell us to get lost!  This was a very frightening moment and possibly a defining moment in our relationship. Here is what I learned:  When Marlene's life is in danger she will throw the life of her husband in harms way in an attempt to save her own!! HA!! Our guides had told us if the gorilla ever charges at us, we are to stay still, stay quiet and not look the beast in the eye.  Well Marlene did avoid eye contact but that's only because she was too busy screaming and trying to get on the other side of me. She pushed me in front of her in the process...unbelievable!! on your HONEYMOON?? HAHA!!

Mother gorilla with baby

Silverback Gorilla taking down tres

After all this, our time was up.  The park put regulations in place to ensure the gorillas are disturbed and interrupted as little as possible.  We are only allowed to view them for 1 hour.  Although is certainly didn't feel like 1 hour we were happy to comply especially after we had clearly stressed 2of the 4.  As we walked out I watched in awe as the silver back was now standing up and taking down massive trees to eat.  The animal is pure strength and power.

Silverback saying good bye

mother gorilla peaceful now

This concludes this portion of our incredible journey into Kenya and Uganda.  Thanks again to all those who made it happen and we both hope you enjoyed reading and viewing along with us. Until the next time we find ourselves over seas...hope everyone is well!

Touring around Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

Bwindi - dense rainforest home to the mountain gorillas

After a couple of days on our lake side resort, we were more then refreshed and ready for our next adventure. Today was kind of a filler day, we were able to wake up slowly and take our time at the breakfast table before meeting up with our driver guide for our final destination.  It was another beautiful sunny morning, and a perfect temperature.  Our drive took about 5 hours allowing us plenty of time to get settled into our new rainforest side banda overlooking the rolling hills of Bwindi.  We knew this was a special place the second we set foot on the grounds, not only were the surrouding stunning but the food was delicious and the staff were very kind.  We took them up on their offer to give us a tour of the surrounding village.  It was incredible how just how much the climate had changed from the "lake district" to the jungle region.  It was now very hot and sticky, not exactly a surprise considering its a rainforest, but we were only a few hundred KMs away from the lake region.

Ugandan long horned cow

We encountered many points of interest along our tour of this busy little community.  We started the tour with a nice walk along a meandering stream which led to a waterfall.  The only problem was in order to get to the water falls we would've had to cross the stream.  Since we had a full day of trekking the next day we decided it would not be wise to attempt this, especially after a couple of guys who were on the tour with us decided to attempt this cross and ended up knee deep in rushing water. It made for an entertaining moment, but surely it wasn't worth soaking their hiking boots to dip their head in the water.  Continuing the tour, our guide took us through tea and coffee plantations.  Because of the climate here they are able to harvest these crops a couple times a year bringing much needed income to this remote area. 

Coffee and Tea plantations

As we continued on through the village we came to an oddly placed hut in the middle of the forest.  We were informed this was where the shaman lived.  Unfortunately for us he was out at the moment (apparently he's quite the interesting character) so his wife gave us a run down of the various herbs they use to "cure" various ailments.  They have everything from simple pain killers and laxatives to "cures" for malaria and infertility.  Regardless of what we may or may not believe it was still intriguing to learn the strength of nature's healing ability.  To think these natural remedies have been in use for thousands of years is truely inspiring.

Banana Gin Distillers



Rippening Bananas

 Ironically the next point of interest brought us to the local makers of Banana Gin.  This was also quite fascinating to see as well.  They had a very primitive system of distilling bananas into pure alcohol and I'm pretty sure there was a LOT of perfecting (ie. sampling) going on by these distillers. Next we came across a banana farmer who demonstrated to us methods of rippining bananas.  Apparently for bananas (and I suspect this to be the case for most fruit) they don't all rippen at the same time, they in fact rippen one at a time.  But in order to sell these bananas to the markets, there is a need to have large amounts of bananas which all become ripe at the same time....so they dig huge holes, through the bananas stem and all into the holes and cover them with layers and layers and layers of banana leaves. Not only is this how they rippen them but its also the way that they are able to ferment them for things such as banana wine, and for further process down the river by the Gin distillers.  It was pretty incredible to stand by these holes where you could literally feel the warmth from the slowly fermenting fruit! 

Not sure about this wine

It was here that we were given the opportunity to taste test this local delicacy (and if there was a way to write sarcasm, this would be the extreme sarcasm font).  Although we were all kind of hesitant to try their brews, we figured, well how bad could it be?  So the first beverage that was poured for us was the banana juice, now I distinctly heard him say banana JUICE however, our fellow tourist who was the lucky chap to try these concoctions first, took a small sip and say "mmm ok ok this must be the banana wine, I can definitely taste the alcohol".  And this pretty much summed up what was about to transpire...it was in fact just the juice but tasted absolutely horrible.  It tasted like something you had left in the baking hot sun for three weeks...ughh I was scared to even think about what the gin tasted like.  But onward with our taste test!! Next was the wine, the funniest thing was that we were all standing around in a circle watching the tour leader pour us a small glass of the stuff, we'd take a sip and kind of nod politely and pass it to the next person...and EVERYONE had the exact same reaction.  At this point I started thinking, maybe this is a form of entertainment for these locals, to trick us poor unsuspecting tourists into thinking these guys actually drink this stuff!  Next was the Gin, when he pulled out a bottle that was as translucent as water I began thinking the one girl in our group who claimed she didn't drink alcohol was the smartest of the lot.  Aside from the 95% alcohol I shot before doing the worlds most dangerous road in Bolivia, this was the most wretched, unbearable substance that's ever touched my lips!  But it made for good times as we all laughed and joked about what type of dire situation of boredom we'd all have to be in to even contemplate having a couple drinks of this stuff.  Oh well, clearly not for tourists!

The next stop was the Bwindi Watoto Primary School.  This portion of our tour was very inspiring, the school was built and funded entirely by volunteers.  The school was started by a couple of American volunteers who were travelling the area in the hopes of seeing the gorillas.  It was basically a 1 class school built from locally made bricks, and if I remember correctly had only a couple of teachers. The school was set up for orphans and children of very poor families in the region.  We weren't told this, but given its location I would assume a lot of men died in civil strife since we were quite close to both the Rwanda and Congo borders.  The hospital in the area was also set up on the same premise.  It was also built by volunteers through the donations of many people who lived abroad but had past through this area at some time in their lives.  Part of the tour was of course to show you what tourists dollars had accomplished and it was really nice to see the donation dollars making a real difference in the lives of these very poor people.  Before this hospital was built, the nearest one was over 400km on extremely rugged roads where most people's only method of transportation is a bicycle or maybe a motorcycle at best.  The main focus of the hospital isfor new borns and their mothers, and also for sick children, but they also do things like promote and give out free bug nets to the locals. This has had a dramatic affect in the incidents of malaria in this region. 

A Bwindi hoedown by the Batwa

The final portion of our tour took us to the top of a hill where the local Batwa people were to put on a show of music and dance.  On our way up the hill we got an understanding of how quickly rain can come.  One minute it was nice and sunny, the next it was extremely windy and we could see very dark clouds coming in from over the mountains.  Luckily it didn't rain to hard and the Batwa put on a good show for us. These people were probably the biggest losers when Uganda decided to make this region a national preserve in order to protect the gorillas. In being a preserve the government evicted all of these forest dwellers and forced them to intigrate into local communities.  The park was brought into existance relatively recently (1994) so all of the Batwa people there had been born and raised in the forest.  I could not even imagine having to deal with such an upheavle.

Batwa footstompin dance

We slowly made our own way back to our bandas where we bought a couple beer and watched the sunset behind the heavily forested hills...tomorrow we track gorillas!!!

R&R in the lake region

I don't know what it is, but in true Ryan fashion, I gave up writing in my journal after a major hike...this is now the 3rd time in a row that this has happened and I just realized this trend.  Thanks to my lovely wife (I knew I married you for a reason) I'll at least have another source other then my memory (annnnd maybe google)to go by...

After our extremely challenging hike into the Virungas we were more then ready for some relaxation at one of Southern Uganda's most popular lake, Lake Bunyoni. I had drank a ton of water and re-hydration salts in order to restore the fluids in my body after such an arduous trek. I also made sure to stretch before bed which might have been why I wasn't AS sore as Marlene.  The drive to Bunyoni was about 3 hours of winding terraced hillsides, once at the lake we could see why its been dubbed "the Switzerland of Africa".  As per Marlene its very beautiful but boring...and I suppose compared to all of our other experiences thus far, yes it is boring, but both needed and deserved.  We were staying at a western type resort (not wild west but western world) which had a combination of resort syle cabins and also options for tenting.  This was a very busy place especially since there were two buses full of Swedish tourists on an overland adventure.  When we arrived they seemed to have a monopoly on the best sunning areas (on the dock) but Marlene and I wormed our way in there when they weren't looking :)  We spent many hours on the dock and on the grass sunning and reading.  Marlene spent lots of time on the internet, I don't know if its because she missed the world back in Canada that much or if she was really that bored.  Either way it was very relaxing and a great place to recover. There were several tours that were available including a boat ride of the surrounding area, a canoe ride in a local canoe and also hiking tours, but we weren't really interested in the hiking at this point.  For today we were happy just laying around catching some sun.

View of our Resort on Bunyoni

One of the major drawbacks about this place is that a) the service is VERY slow and lacking and b) the food options are very limited.  Much like a few other places we've been to in Uganda so far, this resort had a HUGE menu with tons and tons of items...unfortunately they just seemed to be there for show and they didn't really have much aside from very simple things like pizza and pasta.  At one point all we wanted was a sandwich and were told they were "out of bread"!!! How can a resort hosting close to 100 people be out of bread completely?? No idea, I guess this is what Anne's friends meant by "Ugandan's are switched off for the most part".  At one point we had to find our driver Vincent and ask him to drive us into town to find somewhere to eat cause apparently somebody forgot to go shopping!  I don't know how this is possible and we were both very disappointed with this resort, the most troubling thing for these business owners is that we are not particularly demanding customers, but boy did they hear an earful from us! 

Marlene and the terraced hills of lake Bunyoni



The one tree of Punishment Island

The next day we engaged in a couple more activities (other then dock sitting!) and decided to go on a boat ride to see the lake.  This turned out to be something to help pass the time as there is really nothing too fantastic going on.  The view is spectacular and watching the locals come in via traditional canoe was interesting but the only landmark of any significance is one that most places would not want to known for.  Its a little place called "punishment island".  The idea was simple, the local people used to leave un-married pregnant women on the island to either die of hunger or to drown while trying to swim back to shore.  Although the island is not particularly far from the mainland in those days (and still to this day) it was rare for the locals to know how to swim.  The only other way they could survice was if an un-married felt he would not meet another woman, he would paddle out to the island in the middle of the night and snag himself a bride. Although this practice has been abandoned, apparently, it is still possible to find women who were picked up from punishment island today.  The island we were shown to be punishment island didn't seem like much more then a bunch of reeds clumped together, as in, it didn't seem like there was much solid land to stand on.



The boat ride didn't last too long, though it did last longer then our market visit that followed. The coolest thing about the market, by far, was watching all the locals bring in their goods by canoe.  Apparently a lot of these people spend all day paddling themselves to the market place in order to sell their goods.  This happens once a week.



The View of Lake Bunyoni from our Resort

Later that evening we decided to take a little paddle in a traditional canoe.  The plan was to paddle out of our little bay to watch the sun set.  Although we are both very adept at paddling regular canoes, unfortunately our experiences in the Canadian wild was little help paddling these hollowed out logs. These "canoes" were exactly that, a very large hollowed out tree, with no shape, making it nearly impossible to steer let alone balance!  There were quite a few near tips and I began to feel as though I couldn't even put my paddle in the water without risking an unwanted swim at dusk!  To make matters worse there were several people who had taken making entertainment out of watching people like us attempt to maoever their way out of the bay. We did finally get the hang of it (sort of) and managed to see a beautiful sunset in the process.

Although we enjoyed the rest and relaxation this lake provided we were also very excited to get moving the next morning...after all, we were going to see one of the most endangered species on the planet!

traditional canoe on lake Bunyoni