Pretty much everyone who’s been to QENP is familiar with Mweya, since it occupies a fabulous location on a peninsula overlooking the Kazinga Channel and Lake Edward. Because it's so far from anything else, Mweya is a self-contained community, with guide and staff lodging, a petrol station, etc., and it's worth taking the time to stroll around the grounds. Everyone we met here, from the desk clerks to the servers to the maintenance people, was incredibly nice and solicitous.
While the rooms weren't slickly designed or recently updated, they were very nice. The bed was enormous (with walk-in mosquito netting!) and every room has a little porch facing the water. The main building of the lodge is quite attractive. The lobby has an enormous picture window looking out over the water, and there are many places to sit in peace on the porches that trace the outside of the building. Both the bar and the restaurant are appealing spaces, and they have indoor and outdoor seating options. There's also a pool (we and the staff were the only people who used it) and a little firepit, which was a great place to sit at night. One of our favorite evenings of our trip was warming ourselves by the fire while watching a thunderstorm roll across Lake Edward.
Unless you're a quadruped or willing to beg food from the fishermen on the lakes, Mweya is your only dining option for miles around. But even without competition, the food here is good. Although the menu tends toward a sort of innocuous internationalism, there were a few local and Indian dishes available, and we found these to be better than the alternatives.
But our favorite thing about Mweya was the animals! There was a huge group (20-30 members) of banded mongoose that roamed the grounds while we were there. They slept under a shade bush near our room and raced around the outside seating area (and even went into the dining room when someone left the door open). We also saw several warthogs running around--they chased a staff member (much to the amusement of his colleagues) and one snuck up behind us while we were sitting on the patio and proceeded to sniff and knock over our camera, which was resting on the ground.
Less cute but more impressive were the two adolescent lions who woke up everyone at Mweya at 330 in the morning by wandering through the grounds roaring. We watched one of them stand perhaps 10 feet from our room and roar and roar. It was simply thrilling.
- Mweya Safari Hotel
- Hotel Mweya Safari
