Afterwards, we went to our room – a beautiful wooden lodge, with rose petals on the bed to cement the romance. The room comes with a large bathroom, glass shower and a bathtub.
You also get your own private balcony, overlooking the stunning landscape of Lake Kyaninga. On one of our nights, we enjoyed cold drinks here, which the staff brought from the main lodge.
The lodge offers a main lounge with a fireplace and a bar; in the evening the fireplace is lit and given that the entire lodge made of dark wood, it makes me feel like I were in an old school hunting cabin, with the shadows of the flames dancing on the walls.
For breakfast, the waiters take your order in the evening and prepare it for you the next morning – a heavy treat needed if yours is an action-packed day ahead.
From tennis and badminton, canoeing, to guided walks through the forest surrounding the lake, there is a lot to do. We opted for a morning of tennis and badminton, although the grass on the tennis court seemed to have been cut only halfway, and the grass was still lying on the field, making it impossible for the tennis ball to bounce.
My girlfriend used to be an elite badminton player; so, I would have stood a better chance at tennis had the lawn cooperated!
Of the guided walks, we combined two different hikes, which made for an entire day of walking – seven hours! We started off with our local guide, Simon, who really made the trip wonderful.
The first stop was at a viewpoint overlooking the Great Western Rift Valley. On clear days, you can see Lake Albert on the border with the DR Congo. Sadly, even though the view was amazing, we couldn’t see that far.
We had our lunch at the top of the viewpoint, while enjoying the scenery. The lunch included a sandwich, apple, muffin, juice, an egg and some biscuits; enough to fill an empty stomach, but my thoughts often wandered to the three-course meal at the lodge, since the egg was too hardboiled, and the sandwich a bit too soggy because of the warm mayonnaise.
I ate the chicken sandwich, which was really tasty, but Sigrun settled for the cheese sandwich, which seemingly had all the cheese in Fort Portal between the bread.
Next, we embarked on what was called the ‘village walk’, which is exactly as it says. Simon took us through the small towns in the area, where we met the locals living in the stunning surroundings of Fort Portal.
We learned to say kurungi, which is Rutooro word for well, when people greeted us. The men always answered my girlfriend more enthusiastically than they did me, even though I found my pronunciation to be way better.
More than once they asked us to leave my girlfriend behind with the men, and I was jokingly warned to be prepared to fight for her. Each time, Simon was reluctant to translate, maybe a little bit embarrassed.
When we got back to the lodge, our feet were hurting. We enjoyed our drinks on the balcony of the main lodge, while taking a dip in the pool. The foot-shaped pool is carved directly from the walls of the volcanic mountain and we were told it was one of the things in the building process that took the longest.
Here we sat and watched the sun set over the horizon. Dinner was also a three-course meal; the meals were absolutely lovely, but by the end of our stay, the urge to eat something else was growing strong.
On our way home, we stopped for grilled plantain (gonja) for lunch, which was a welcomed change from the heavy meals at the lodge. We had also managed to squeeze in a canoe trip on the lake before leaving, which took us to the forest edge where the seemingly habituated monkeys looked down at us from their branches.
At $340 (about Shs 1,258,000) a night, I dreaded the time when I needed to pay the bill. Sure, compared to my homeland Denmark the price seemed worth it, but somehow that did not change my mood.
In order to find out our bill (there is a discount on four nights’ stay or longer), a kind staff member called the manager. The manager was instantly in a bad mood, asking angry questions to the staff member. When we said we were checking out a day earlier, which we had already informed the staff, the manager tried to scrape the 10 per cent discount, yet we had already stayed for four nights.
Luckily, I still had the email from the same manager saying there was no penalty for checking out earlier. I felt bad for the staff member and asked to talk with the manager myself, but the manager declined. In the end, we got our discount, but the staff member was asked to inform us, clearly uncomfortably, that the manager just lost $340 because of us.
I was taken aback, since the rest of the staff had been nothing but smiling and nice. What a way to taint an otherwise beautiful experience!
Kyaninga made us feel relaxed and pampered like never before; that view at the lodge made us feel like we were on top of the world. We were not ready to come back down, yet.
