Travel Guide Lac Mutanda

Nestled in an area of rolling green hills, Lake Mutanda is ideally situated halfway between the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and Mgahinga National Park. The lakeside resorts are therefore ideal base camps for anyone wishing to track gorillas in Nkuringo, Rushaga or on the slopes of the Virunga Range. Beyond the practicalities mentioned above, this shimmering body of water and its surrounding environment are well worth a full day's exploration. The lake - dotted with about fifteen islands and islets - is ideal for swimming, since it is free of schistosomes, or for a canoe trip to approach the local Punishment Island (where one can still see bones and the chains to which women who were knocked up out of wedlock were tied) or an island that belonged to a German who fell madly in love with a Ugandan woman in the middle of the 20th century... Even in the absence of large mammals, the waters of the lake, its shores and the surrounding terrain are home to a variety of wildlife. The hills that border the lake are a real invitation to walk. Cultivated, they are populated with farmers, very affable, working on their plot of land. The landscapes, mountainous, whose chromatic diversity is still heightened by the introduction of new cultures (tea, coffee...) and the unavoidable banana trees, are superb. The panoramas on the Virunga volcanoes are of the same kind.