Day 1: Start your Uganda Gorilla trek and golden monkey tracking tour by driving to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (the mountain gorillas' home)
We shall arrange for the tour guide to meet with you in Kampala/Entebbe/Kigali at 07:00 hours before starting the gorilla trek tour on your drive heading to the mountain gorillas' sanctuary of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The Bwindi Forest is located some 500 km from Kampala the capital of Uganda, a distance we take ±7 hours to cover by road (or 4 hours from Kigali).
En route, there is a local community popular for making local drums and crafts and a fruit market. Stopover, admire, and buy yourself souvenirs. Proceed to the Equator line taken as one beautiful scenery in Africa - the pathway of the sun and take photographs.
The drive to the mountain gorilla sanctuary is over 7 hours from Entebbe or Kampala, most of the time on the smooth-surfaced road with about 45 minutes of dusty murram. You could choose to fly to Bwindi if you don't feel like driving. One-way flights range from 280$-360$ pp.
Uganda Gorilla Trek Accommodation options (all on a full board basis)
Up-market: Four Gorillas Lodge | Chameleon Hill Lodge
Moderate: Lake Mulehe Gorilla Lodge | Ichumbi Gorilla Lodge
Low Budget: Gorilla Haven Lodge Rushaga
Day 2: Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park
Our first primates encounter with the endangered primates is with the Bwindi Mountain gorillas today when we enjoy gorilla trekking in the deep afro-montane jungles.
From your previous night's accommodation, the driver guide will be meeting you and driving to the Bwindi Park office for a briefing before trekking into the jungles in search of the mountain gorillas. Before your actual trek, there is normally a team that surveys and locates where the gorillas are so that the park rangers have a bit of an idea as to where to find the gorillas. So, after the pre-trek briefing, you will be allocated to a gorilla tracking group. Some gorilla groups require a bit of driving (normally 20-30 minutes) while for others, it is just a walk to the trek trailhead. Your gorilla trek passes through the thick undergrowth of the forest where the paths are just made for the day. and when you finally get closer to the mountain gorillas, you should be sensing their presence by the dung smell, broken tree branches, and previous night's nests. The walking can sometimes be tough and long, but when you catch a glimpse of the magnificent silverback, any discomforts will be quickly forgotten. When the gorillas are sighted, visitors will be guided to within 6 meters from the gorillas and sit around them for a whole hour while gazing into their big round eyes.
While most of today's forests are no more than 12,000 years old, Bwindi's vegetation has been weaving itself into tangles over at least 25,000 years, in the process accumulating a lengthy species list. This includes 310 species of butterfly, 51 reptiles, 200 trees, 88 moths, and an exceptional 120 types of mammals including 10 primates. The latter includes chimpanzees, L'Hoest's, red-tailed and blue monkeys, black and white colobus, baboons, and Bwindi's most famous resident, the mountain gorilla.
Bwindi is a prime destination for birdwatchers. Its 350 species include seven which are IUCN red data listed and 90% of all Albertine rift endemics, species which are difficult or impossible to see in any other part of East Africa.
Uganda Gorilla Trek Accommodation options available (all on a full board basis)
Up-market: Four Gorillas Lodge | Chameleon Hill Lodge
Moderate: Ichumbi Hotel Kisoro
Low Budget: Gorilla Haven Lodge Rushaga | Rushaga Gorilla Camp
Day 3: Golden Monkey Tracking in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park
It is our day for another endangered primates' encounter, this time tracking the golden monkeys in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. After breakfast transfer to the Mgahinga National Park headquarters for briefing and later begin the hike over the volcanic terrain in search of golden monkeys in the bamboo forests.
The Golden Monkey may not be the most well-known primate, but is certainly an enjoyable, little creature that is worth visiting. It is a small curious monkey, golden in color, and loves to scamper around the trees. Golden monkeys are named after their golden-orange fur, and like mountain gorillas, are also considered endangered species. Conservation efforts have been put in place by the Uganda Wildlife Authority to ensure that the monkeys are protected – especially from poachers.
There is a habituated family of monkeys in Mgahinga, where tourists can track and stay with them for a period of four hours depending on where they nested the previous night and how far it is from the starting point.
It is estimated that Mgahinga Gorilla National Park has between 3000-4000 golden monkeys grouped in troupes of the 30s led by a principal adult male. Golden monkeys are primarily to be found in the bamboo forest that skirts the lower slopes of the volcanoes. They are quite more active in the bamboo canopy. Golden monkeys are opportunistic feeders. What they feed on could be the availability of fruits, leaves of bamboo trees, shoots of bamboo, shrubs, flowers, and invertebrates, and these make it restricted to the highland forest, mostly the bamboo forest.
Golden monkey tracking starts at Mgahinga Gorilla National Park headquarters at 7:30 a.m. for a pre-tracking briefing (on the dos and don’ts of tracking the golden monkeys). The actual trek begins at 8:00 a.m. Hiking through the forests to see the golden monkeys is not as strenuous as gorilla trekking because golden monkeys live in lower areas, so tourists do not track for more than 3 hours. When tourists encounter the golden monkey family, they are given one hour (0r 4 hours in case you are doing the habituation experience) to spend with them (to take photographs and observe their behavior). With this activity, there is no minimum number of tourists who track each group, and the age limit is 12 years.
Accommodation options available (all on a full board basis)
Up-market: Four Gorillas Lodge | Chameleon Hill Lodge
Moderate: Ichumbi Hotel Kisoro
Low Budget: Gorilla Haven Lodge Rushaga
Day 4: Departure to Kampala/Kigali/Entebbe (Daily flights to Entebbe can be booked as well)
We shall be ending the Uganda Gorilla Trekking Golden Monkey Tracking tour with a drive back to Entebbe or Kigali.
We check out from the lodge/ camp at 8 am for a drive down the grassed and terraced escarpments of southwestern Uganda while taking in the breathtaking sights of the hills of the region dubbed ‘the little Switzerland of Africa’.
This area is a highly fertile, mountainous region with steep-sided hills covered from top to bottom in neatly terraced cultivated rows. Not to miss as we traverse Mbarara are the impressing longhorn Ankole cattle. A remarkable highlight of this journey is the Equator line and surely you will cross it as we have a brief stop here.
We will be in Entebbe in the evening before your flight back home.
