A Week on the Wild Side

Gorilla Tracking

Rwanda Gorilla Tracking

The Explorers Trail

The Great Apes

The Uganda Adventurer

Uganda Under Canvas

A Week on the Wild Side (8 days):
On arrival at Entebbe we will meet you and drive to Kampala. Here we check in to The Sheraton Kampala in preparation for the beginning of our trip tomorrow. Day 2 we drive west to the Queen Elizabeth National Park, traveling through varied countryside. The final approach to the park is breathtaking as we see it from the Rift Valley escarpment – the park, laid out before us in a vast savannah plain, its great lakes to either side of us, joined by the silver ribbon of the Kazinga Channel. In the distance we see the faint outline of the Rwenzori Mountains, normally cloud covered at this time of day.

We arrive at our lodge in time to check in and prepare for our sundowner launch trip on the Kazinga Channel. This water system hosts the highest concentration of Hippo in the world, and this excursion brings us up close to them. We will also see crocodile, buffalo, and other game that drink from the Channel, and experience the profusion of bird life that is supported here. We return in the evening, and as dusk falls, we prepare for dinner and a good night’s rest at Mweya Safari Lodge. Our adventure necessitates a very early breakfast this morning. We drive to the top of the Chambura Gorge, a deep natural ravine in the surrounding plains. We descend onto the floor of the gorge, where a riverine forest very different from what we have so far seen awaits us. The gorge is home to troops of Chimpanzee, some of them habituated to human presence. On our three to four hour walk we have a good chance of seeing them, as well as other bird and mammal species.

We drive back to the lodge for lunch, followed by a late afternoon game drive. On the game drive, we may run into Waterbuck, Elephant, Giant Forest Hog, Bushbuck, Buffalo, or even Lion or Leopard. Then it’s back to our lodge for our usual evening wind-down. Today you will travel further south to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. This is a leisurely drive, taking most of the day. We climb out of the Rift Valley at first, and then travel through the Kigezi Highlands of South-Western Uganda. The scenery gets increasingly breathtaking as we switchback up and down the hills. Thirty kilometers before the end of our journey, we see our objective – the mist-swathed mountains of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. On arrival, we are welcomed to the luxurious Gorilla Forest Camp with hot towels and a welcome drink. We retire to our enormous tents to freshen up and meet later around the campfire to recount the day’s activities. The next 2 days activities may be amongst the most exciting and challenging of our entire expedition.

The Mountain Gorillas in Bwindi are part of a worldwide population of just 600 individuals. The gorillas we are allowed to track belong to either one of two habituated family groups. For up to five years each, these groups have undergone an extremely delicate process that has gradually brought them to tolerate the presence of humans for a brief period every day and allowed a few privileged visitors to interact with them in the wild. The gorillas are by no means tame, and are completely wild animals. However, experienced guides will accompany us on our tracking, many of whom have been involved in the habituation process themselves. The guides will use their knowledge of the gorillas’ habits and information from the previous day to locate the group’s whereabouts. Because of this, the time taken to track the gorillas varies enormously, from as little as half an hour to as much as 9 hours before one returns to camp. Once the gorillas are located, our group will be allowed a maximum of one hour with them. This is one of the world’s truly memorable experiences – a look into one of these magnificent creatures’ eyes brings home the bond that exists between them and us. It also brings home the poignant fact that they are on the edge of extinction, and that our presence here contributes to ensuring their continued survival The hour is often over all too quickly, and we slowly make our way back to camp to recount the day’s adventures.

Today we will travel eastwards to Lake Mburo National Park. After lunch in Mbarara, we drive to the park and check in to Lake Mburo Tented Camp. We enjoy an evening game drive to view the parks plains game species and birds, followed by a return to the camp to freshen up for dinner. After an early morning game drive, we return to Entebbe, where we will check in to Windsor Lake Victoria Hotel and prepare for our evening flight out. We will arrive in time for lunch, with the afternoon at leisure by the pool.