Things I’ve seen that I want never to forget 2

The morning we left Lake Mutanda, with the last dying embers of our camera battery, I managed to get this shot. The bird in the tree is the crane, national bird of Uganda, and it seemed like the perfect image before we left the country for Rwanda.

Lake Mutanda Camp

Part of the same community development organisation as the Golden Monkey, the camp at Lake Mutanda, about 11km from Kisoro, was for us the perfect place to relax and get our heads together.

The camp offers three tents for hire for 20,000Ush (£7), but it would be hard to choose to stay in one of those after you’ve seen the treehouse:

Get away from it all in your very own treehouse...

Inside is just a double bed, but even that was something of a treat after the number of twin rooms we’ve had to sleep in…! It costs 40,000Ush a night, and there are various walks and activities you can do in addition. We took a dug-out canoe on the lake, which was actually pretty hard work, but apart from that we were happy to sit on the verandah, read our books, watch the birds attend to their nest in the roof of the treehouse, and play with Bobby the dog:

Jess made firm friends with Bobby the dog, who was a dead ringer for the Simpsons' Santa's Little Helper

We’d had a bit of a stressful time, what with Lake Bunyonyi and all, and this was just an amazing place to relax and let time drift by. If you get bored, the next apocalyptic thunderstorm is usually only a few hours away, and every now and again someone wanders up to the treehouse to bring you a freshly cooked meal.

It just doesn’t get any better than this.