7 Day Uganda Primates And Wildlife Safari

Our driver guide collects you at Entebbe and we head west through Kampala and on towards Fort Portal, roughly 320 kilometres over five to six hours with lunch on the way. The country changes steadily as you go, cultivated hills giving way to tea estates, with the Rwenzori range showing on the horizon in clear weather. Nearing Kibale we drop into the crater lake country, dozens of steep sided volcanic craters holding deep green water among banana groves and tea, which is the first thing about Uganda that surprises most visitors. Kibale protects around 795 square kilometres of moist evergreen rainforest and holds thirteen primate species, the highest density in East Africa. Check in near Kanyanchu or on a crater rim. Kibale briefs in the morning rather than before dawn, unlike the chimp forests further south, so tonight is a civilised one after the drive. Our guide will run through the week with you over dinner and check your boots and rain gear, because you trek twice on this trip.

To the Kanyanchu visitor centre for the briefing, then into the forest with Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers who track by listening for pant hoots and locating nests built the previous evening. The ranger carries a rifle, which is for warning off forest elephant rather than the primates. Roughly 1,500 chimpanzees live in Kibale, the largest population in the country, and the Kanyanchu community has been tracked since 1993. Terrain here is gently rolling rather than the steep ridges of other chimp forests, so this is brisk walking rather than a slog, and the trek runs around three hours with one hour with the community once found. In the afternoon, Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary just outside the park, community managed with revenue funding local schools and healthcare, holding eight primate species and around 138 birds. The great blue turaco is the one everybody wants and usually gets on the boardwalk, and sitatunga, otter and bush pig all use the swamp if you are patient.

South out of the forest and down onto the plains, only two to three hours, which makes this the easiest transfer of the trip. The country opens as you drop, and the Rwenzori range stands to the west if the cloud lifts. Queen Elizabeth covers roughly 1,978 square kilometres and was named after Queen Elizabeth II in 1954, holding around 95 mammal species and over 600 birds, the longest bird list of any protected area in Uganda. We check you in on the Mweya peninsula with the water below you, take lunch and rest through the heat, then head out in the afternoon for the Kazinga Channel boat cruise, which afternoon departures do far better than morning ones. The channel runs about 32 kilometres between Lake George and Lake Edward and the two hour trip passes one of the densest hippo populations in Africa, crocodiles on the mud, elephant and buffalo drinking, and waterbirds packed along the banks.

Out at six for the Kasenyi plains, open grassland dotted with candelabra euphorbia and the best lion ground in this part of the park. Large concentrations of Uganda kob graze here and the lions follow them, with elephant, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog and hyena filling out the morning. Lion tracking with the research team is available if you want to go further, using radio telemetry to reach animals off the standard tracks. Late morning we take the explosion crater drive, climbing into a field of steep sided volcanic craters with the widest views in the park back over Lake Edward. In the afternoon, Kyambura Gorge, a crack in the savannah a hundred metres deep and filled with rainforest the grassland gives no hint of, holding a small habituated chimpanzee community. The group is isolated and sightings are less certain than at Kibale, so treat it as a striking half day rather than a guarantee. Kalinzu Forest just outside the park is the alternative and often gives better odds.

We drive out of the park the interesting way, through the remote Ishasha sector rather than around the outside. This is tree climbing lion country: lions here habitually drape themselves along the branches of large fig and acacia through the heat of the day, behaviour seen regularly in only a handful of places on earth, and the males carry dark manes. Nobody can promise you one, since it depends where the prides are that week, and our guides who work the sector say so plainly. We work the fig trees and the river circuits with a picnic lunch, then continue south into the hills. Topi are common here and scarce elsewhere in the park. Total driving time runs six to seven hours including the game drive, which is a good deal better than the same hours on tarmac. Bwindi in the late afternoon. Pack your daypack tonight rather than in the dark, and get your boots dry by the fire.

Breakfast early, then to the sector briefing station for half past seven. Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers go through the rules and split everyone into groups of eight trekkers per gorilla family: keep the minimum distance, which Uganda’s guidance now sets at around ten metres, no flash, no eating in their presence, voices low, and nobody treks with a cold. Trackers went out at first light and are already with the families. Then into the forest, which is harder walking than the Virungas, a constant sequence of steep ridges and deep valleys with rangers cutting through the tangle ahead of you. Treks run from one to six hours. Bwindi covers about 331 square kilometres, has been continuously forested for something like 25,000 years and shelters roughly 459 mountain gorillas, close to half the world population. When you reach the family, one hour. Hire a porter; on this ground it is close to compulsory.

A slower morning before the border. The Batwa lived in this forest as hunter gatherers for thousands of years and were moved out when the park was gazetted in 1991. The Batwa cultural walk is led by Batwa guides who demonstrate hunting techniques, fire making, medicinal plant use and shelter building, and who talk about life inside the forest and what changed afterwards. It is genuinely informative and it is not a comfortable story, which is as it should be. Afterwards we take the road south to the Cyanika or Katuna border, where our guide handles the vehicle paperwork and walks you through immigration, then on through the Rwandan hills to Kigali. Total driving time runs four to five hours including the crossing, against about ten to Entebbe, which is why we finish here. Drop off at the airport for an evening flight, or at your hotel if you are staying on in Kigali.