DOLWE ISLAND
Five. According to Dolwe Island authorities, this would be the number of tourists visiting the island in 2017. But the situation could change rapidly with the inauguration, in December 2020, of the MV Sigulu, a ferry linking Lugala (Namayingo district) to Dolwe Island via Sigulu Island. Until then, this land of nearly 25 km2 surrounded by the waters of Lake Victoria was accessible only at the price of a crossing, often long and sometimes perilous, on small boats sailing from Bwondha (Mayuge district); enough to deter the most daring adventurers, especially since the island has no tourist infrastructure ... However, Dolwe Island (also called Lolui or Lolwe) is not lacking in assets. With its granite chaos (vaguely reminiscent of the Costa Rican coast...), its fishing villages (the main one, Golofa), its sandy beaches and its rocky escarpments dominating the waves, this island oasis is very pretty. But the tourist potential of the island rests above all on the rock art. The first western researchers investigated Dolwe during the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, other scientific missions have been undertaken to study the enigmatic rock paintings, engravings and cupules that the island abounds in. Coloured mainly in red, the painted motifs (concentric circles, parallel lines...) show many homologies with those of Nyero. Undated, these rock paintings, mainly located on the west and south coasts of the island, are nevertheless stylistically similar to the techniques and geometric imagery of the Batwa. Dolwe Island also has, in addition to absconding engraved representations, more than 20,000 cups (one of the highest concentrations in the world). On average 15 cm deep, 25 cm wide and 35 cm long, these depressions and circular holes, carved by man from large granite slabs, required considerable work. These cups seem to have had a ritual or spiritual function. Emitting a metallic sound when struck with large pebbles, therock gongs, scattered along the shoreline, are another island attraction. They may have been used to transmit specific messages to islanders or to communicate with spirits. All in all, the exotic Dolwe Island, which seems to have been inhabited, in a discontinuous way, since the Mesolithic (lithic tools dating from this period have been discovered), is well worth an odyssey...