Explore Uganda Safari

After your early morning breakfast, depart Kampala and drive southwest towards Bwindi Impenetrable National Park—the fabled home to the rare mountain gorilla. The largest living primate and the rarest of all the apes, an estimated population of only 1000 live in tropical rain-forest in the border area of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in equatorial East Africa. Along the way you will have expansive and ever-changing views as the landscape changes from flat bush and farmland to richly green rolling steep hills of the Kigezi highlands—it really is a breath-taking journey and you’ll also pass through animated and colourful market towns and villages.We stop and have lunch in the town of Mbarara and later proceed to Bwindi arriving in the late afternoon. Check in at your preferred lodge close to one of the gates of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park from where you begin your gorilla-tracking the next morning. Whichever lodge you choose, you will experience the sights and sounds of the ‘impenetrable forest’, so-called because of the dense and tangled foliage and towering trees. Enjoy your dinner and prepare for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting the mountain gorillas.

• Overnight in Bwindi National Park
• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Lunch and dinner included
• Drinking water is provided. All other drinks are extra

You will wake early for breakfast and be taken to the park headquarters where you will have a briefing from your gorilla-tracking team at 8am about the rules of the park, and what to do and what not to do when you meet up with the gorillas. Then head off with your group through the foothills and higher-altitude forest—ensure you have strong shoes, wet-weather gear and a stout walking stick. As the gorilla family sleeps in a different place every night and travels through the day, pausing occasionally to eat and rest, you’ll have several guides and trackers to find their location and tracking takes between 2 and 8 hours. But once your group catches up with the mountain gorilla family, all fatigue is immediately forgotten when you discover that you are sitting only a few metres from the gorillas in the undergrowth. You are allotted one hour to observe them, and will perhaps see the babies scrambling up trees, juveniles playing, females grooming each other or feeding their young, or even a giant silverback (dominant male) pounding his chest. The gorillas are just as interested in their human visitors and will stare curiously back and it is a spine-tingling hour. Afterwards the guide will lead you gently away for the long but exhilarated walk back, and later head back to your lodge and rest. In the evening you can choose to relax at the lodge or take an evening interactive walk with the local Batwa people—the original hunter-gatherer community of the forest and you will have the opportunity to learn how they live and also watch them perform traditional singing and dancing.

• Overnight in Bwindi National Park
• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Breakfast, lunch and dinner included
• Drinking water is provided. All other drinks are extra

After a tasty breakfast, check-out from the lodge and start your journey from Bwindi eastwards to Lake Mburo National Park. Leaving the spectacular southwestern highlands behind and passing through Mbarara town, we encounter the farmland of central Uganda, which is home to the long-horned Ankolecattle and banana and coffee plantations. You will have lunch along the way and on arrival at the park check-in at your lodge followed by a late afternoon game drive. The 260-sq-km Lake Mburo National Park has a pleasant landscape of open plains, acacia grasslands, riverine woodland, and within the park boundary are five lakes linked by papyrus marshes. It sustains large numbers of antelope like topi, impala, oribi, eland, klipspringer, Defassa waterbuck, reedbuck and Uganda kob, as well as zebra, giraffe, warthog and buffalo.  Enjoy dinner and a relaxing evening at your lodge.

• Overnight in Lake Mburo National Park
• Accommodation at your camp or lodge
• Breakfast, lunch and dinner included
• Drinking water is provided. All other drinks are extra

After a leisurely breakfast, go on a tranquil boat safari on Lake Mburo to see hippos and crocodiles, while herds of buffalo can often be spotted in the marshes and baboons and vervet monkeys in the lakeside forests.The cruise is ideal for bird watching and more than 350 interesting species have been recorded in the park. Highlights are the rare shoebill stork, crested crane (Uganda’s national bird and emblem), saddle-billed stork and Abyssinian ground hornbill. Other water birds easily spotted are pied and malachite kingfishers, African fish eagles, pelicans, herons and cormorants. After the boat cruise, head back to the lodge and relax at the bar area or swimming pool and then enjoy a last lunch on your Uganda safari. On the drive back to Kampala, stop at the equator sign over the main road for photos and buy crafts and souvenirs at the nearby shops. This exciting 4-day Uganda safari ends at you Kampala hotel in the early evening.

• Accommodation: No accommodation
• Meals & drinks: Breakfast & Lunch
• Drinking water (Other drinks not included)