Lake Burera

From one lake to another... This one closer to Ruhengeri, but much more off the beaten track! As you can see we had a car full... There are 9 people in this car - Francis, Jennifer and their 4 children, Pam, Justus and me! Francis and Co used to live in Uganda, near lake Victoria, but since they have lived in Rwanda they have not been to the lake as it is so far!  They were so thrilled to have seen it. I think the youngest son, Simeon, has never seen such a vast expanse of water! Everyone was very excited to go for a paddle!

We had to drive down a very steep, rocky, grassy track to get access to the water... (remember this for later in the story!)  and there appeared to be a guest house down by the lake, but it looked deserted...I can't imagine how anyone would ever get to it!

We had bought chapatis and bottles of juice for everyone, so we perched on the wall of a building and ate those  - it was so deserted that we didn't even build up a crowd of people, as usually happens if a Muzungu stands still for more than 2mins!  I watched some bright yellow weaver birds building nests in the reeds, unfortunately, I couldn't really get close enough to get a decent photo...I tried, but once I had climbed down the slope into situ, the birds decided they weren't brave enough to continue building with me there!


We also climbed up a hill to see a shack that Nathan owns...he was going to set it up as a bar and grill, but as with so many of his projects, it never came to be.  It is now a deserted building with a guard living in it.  But from the top of the hill, there were amazing views over the lake.  I got into trouble for taking this photo, as the boats out of shot have been confiscated by the police, from fishermen without permits.  The ones on the beach are used by the people with permits.  I was slightly sad to see there was nobody fishing.  Ten years ago there were young boys with home-made fishing rods and boats carved out of tree trunks...but no longer.

There were some amazing views of Muhabura volcano from this area, and the red soil made everything look beautiful.  We have limited amount of data here - Pam has a GB a day and you just get cut off when you've used it up, so I'm not going to post any more photos, but I will happily show anyone who is interested when I get home!

And finally...the drama I hinted at earlier: we started the steep descent back up the hill, and with all those people in the car and the steep uneven ground, the car got stuck!  We all got out, but still one of the wheels continued to spin, and we were near an edge so going backwards was difficult.  We attempted to put a mat under the tyre, that didn't work....we attempted 2nd gear, that didn't work...we attempted to push, that didn't work.  In the end, Pam got behind the wheel and in a heroic feat of skill, she managed to get the car to go backwards enough that it got off the rocky ground and could be rolled back substantially that a she could take a run up at the rocky mound and get over it!  I was well impressed!  We walked up the hill, so as not to add any weight to the car.  It didn't seem to suffer too much, apart from a cover underneath which Justus had to detach as it was trailing on the bottom!  So far we have noticed no other ill effects, though I imagine the bottom looks a bit battered....  The fun of driving in Africa!