8 DAYS UGANDA CHIMPS & GORILLAS SAFARI

Arriving into Entebbe, drive about 10mins to your hotel and have the rest of the day free at leisure.

Transfer to the airport for your flight your scheduled flight to Kasese airstrip in the early morning. You will be met by your driver/guide upon arrival and drive about 1.5 hr to your lodge.

Kibale NP is Uganda’s primates’ paradise. Her moist evergreen rainforest is home to the highest concentration of primates in the world and the main attraction is the opportunity to track her 500 habituated Chimpanzees. These delightful apes, genetically the closest living relatives of man, are tremendous fun to watch as they squabble and play in fruiting trees. 

We enjoy a leisurely 2 hours crater lake walk this afternoon, climbing to the highest point on the crater rim for stunning views of Lake Kyaninga, rolling hills of Fort Portal and the Rwenzori Mountains, also known as Mountain of the Moon.

After breakfast, we drive to Kanyanchu Park HQ for a briefing before we enter the forest on our chimpanzee track. Upon sighting the chimpanzees, spend an hour with them and observe as they go about their daily life! (the entire duration may take up to 4 hours)

Spend about 3 hours in the afternoon to visit the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary, home to around 200 species of birds. More importantly, the sanctuary is a community-based project which has helped upgrade the lives of the people living around the area.

Depart for 3 hours’ drive to Queen Elizabeth NP and arrive just in time for lunch.

Queen Elizabeth NP is Uganda’s most popular savannah park. Stretching over 1978 sq. km of open savannah, rainforest, dense papyrus swamps and brooding crater lakes, the park is home to an incredible array of wildlife including almost 100 species of mammals, from hippos, elephants, leopards and its tree-climbing lions. 

In the afternoon, we enjoy a game drive in the park.

Rise early for your morning game drive into the wilds of Queen Elizabeth NP, famous for four of the big fives. Expect to spot lions, spotted hyenas, hippos, elephants, warthogs, buffaloes, water bucks, occasional leopard sightings and many more.  

In the afternoon, enjoy a pleasant scheduled boat cruise on the Kazinga channel, famous for the highest concentration of hippos in Africa and drink in another beautiful Africa sunset.

The drive to Bwindi NP will take around 4-5 hours, depending on your lodge location. Check into your lodge and have the rest of the day at leisure.

Bwindi NP is a UNESCO Wold Heritage Site and accessible only on foot. It provides habitat for over 90 mammals, 346 species of birds, 202 species of butterflies and more. The park, however, is most notable for her 340 Mountain Gorillas, representing half of the world’s population of this critically endangered primate. 

The highlight of your trip! Transfer to the park HQ in the morning for your briefing before you set off into the forest in the footsteps of the Mountain Gorillas. It may take 1 to 1.5 hour to reach your gorilla family but expect to take longer hours. Once you locate the family, the sensational feeling is almost indescribable. It is a humbling experience to stand just metres from man’s distant cousins as they eat, rest, play and bond with their young. Follow the mountain gorillas for an hour as they range freely in the impenetrable forest and discover their gorgeous natural home. 

Enjoy the afternoon at leisure. If you are active, go for a forest walk to see the Muyanga Waterfalls.

Want to spend more time with the gorillas? Consider signing up for the Gorilla Habituation Experience, which involves repetitively visiting a gorilla family by well experienced rangers and researchers plus some tourists until a time when the gorillas become used to the sight of humans in their natural environment. You get to spend up to 4 hours with the gorillas versus the regular one-hour interaction and the group is kept small to only 4 persons at a time. Being wild, the gorilla family you are visiting is not fully habituated and some may be shy and stay away. 

This morning, we will drive about 2-3 hours depending on the location of your lodge to the nearest airstrip for an hour flight to Entebbe where you connect your international homebound flight.