Pineapple Bay: A honeymoon nest

And now, coconut trees sprout ahead of two generously sized buildings that give a feel of the passage of time.
There is a restaurant, a visitor’s lounge and a bar. Then at the edge of the green, white sand carpets the shores forming a resort on the lake.

Pineapple Bay, also known as the 12 acre resort for honeymooners, sits on 500 acre on Bulago Island.
It is a 30 minutes sail from Water Front Beach in Entebbe, Wakiso District, on a speedboat.

To show us around, is Christian Samhber, the proprietor, who tells us the resort takes its name from Uganda’s beautiful nature.
“The name came first and the pineapple followed,” he says. The resort opened in 2008.

Back then, it was exclusive to international tourists. When the Austrian left Zanzibar for Uganda in 2012, he was pleasantly surprised. The country was very beautiful with hills similar to Austria’s, only not so cold. He also later found it is very safe. He purchased the property and decided he would let Ugandans visit the resort as well.

“At Christmas, you could have another 20 rooms and fill them up with Ugandans as they are spending. Easter same thing but what would I be doing with these rooms for the rest of the year? So, I decided to do domestic and international guests,” Samhber says, adding that with an average spend of $600 (Shs2.2m) for two days, the resort has an occupancy rate of 30 per cent all over the year.

When we arrived at the resort, we were not alone. Steven Mugisha and Sharon Namutebi had only been married for three days and this seemed the perfect place to spend their honeymoon.

“I did not want to take a flight so we looked around. We were picked on a boat from Munyonyo till here, 45 minutes,” Mugisha says.
The two, discovered a stress-free environment. “This place is very beautiful, very quiet so, it is all we needed to rest. There is no social media, no television. There are no malls to shop from so it has been all about us,” Namutebi chips in.
My personal experience then took over by attempting a ride on Samhber’s bicycles.

But before long, I am walk through a 16km pathway, alternating between wood, leaves, shrubs and grass.
In in the middle of that serenity, I gasp for breath but I am driven on by a promise of a surprise.

Indeed the view of the white and blue clouds battling nightfall over Lake Victoria is smooth and a worthwhile sight.
The cocktail at the top of the hill is the icing on the cake. Once downhill and back on the deck, Samhber stands in the last minutes of the evening, ensuring we catch a fish.

Inside the restaurant, orange lights pour out through glass windows. Under the hues, we sit and the chef brings us the dishes, one at a time.
There is homemade bread, soups and fruit juices. There are also European and American cuisines, made from locally sourced food.

In the morning, we wake up to the cold strike of the lake. The rain poured thrusting waves against our cottages for six hours.

“Normally, it is two hours and the sun is back. We are always seeing Kampala and laughing at how much rain you have,” Samhber says.

Warm again, we reach out for the resort’s binoculars to bird. We see emerald cuckoos, egrets, common greenshanks, spur winged lapwings, pied kingfishers, long tailed cormorants, Speke’s and masked weaverbirds.

“The island has 120 species of birds, when we have not calculated the migrants. If you decide to watch these birds, you wake up early morning and look for them around the island, of course as guides we know the popular places for certain birds,” the birding guide, Puis Muluga, says.
The lunch is what look forward to from that point. A whole grilled tilapia served with fries, avocado sauce, lemon, cucumber, sliced tomatoes and fresh watermelon juice practically owns the afternoon.

We rub our cheeks with white napkins for the last time. No more all-day butlers. No more early morning coffee and all that pampering.

End of an eventful tour
Samhber keeps us going for the remaining minutes, telling stories about the industry and giving recommendations on what can be done to bring the paradise that Uganda is, closer to its citizens.

“There are so many boats at Port Bell. If we could work together with other lodges, hopping from one island to another for like three days, I think the guest experience could improve greatly,” Mr Samhber says.
At 5pm, we leave as we came. This time, taking away a memory of three men, smiling and waving as they see us off.