A Week on the Wild Side

Gorilla Tracking

Rwanda Gorilla Tracking

The Explorers Trail

The Great Apes

The Uganda Adventurer

Uganda Under Canvas

Gorilla Tracking (4 days):
On arrival in Uganda you will transfer to the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park by private air charter. 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. We retire to our enormous tents to freshen up and meet later around the campfire. The next two 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, but are by no means tame, and are completely wild animals. However, experienced guides will accompany us on our tracking, many of who 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.

On day 4 we embark on another private flight back to Entebbe. Both the flight to Bwindi and the return flight today are highlights of this trip. The huge vistas that open up on our one-and-a-half-hour journey belie Uganda’s small size. We see in the distance the hills and plains of Rwanda and Tanzania and the Rift Valley dropping away from us towards Lake Edward and the Congo. Below us, rolling ranchland soon gives way to dry scrub and gigantic wetlands just before our final approach over Lake Victoria. Later in the day, we will transfer to the nearby landing site and travel by speedboat to the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, 23 kilometers off Entebbe on Lake Victoria. The lake, at 69,000 square kilometers is the second-largest fresh water lake in the world, and this boat ride will give you some idea of its sheer size.

Ngamba Island Sanctuary is a program run by the Jane Goodall Institute for orphaned chimpanzees rescued within Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The environment on the 97 acres island is the same as for wild chimpanzees: an African tropical rainforest with more than 50 species of plants that chimps are known to utilize in Uganda. There is plenty of room for the chimps to explore their forest environment. However the forest is not large enough to provide long-term sustenance for the 34 chimps at the sanctuary, so staff members feed them four times every day. Two of these feeds are delivered from the viewing platform, providing an opportunity for the island's many visitors to observe and photograph the chimps. After lunch on the island, we will get a chance to view the afternoon feeding. We then relax for the rest of the day; and return for our evening flight out.