3 Days Self Guided Gorilla Safari
3 Days Self Guided Gorilla Safari
This is a brief self guided gorilla safari which leads to the southwest of Uganda to Bwindi impenetrable national park to visit the few left mountain gorillas in the wild. Village cultural experience with the Batwa pygmies will be a supplementary activity to the gorilla trekking experience. The Batwa are the indigenous inhabitants of Bwindi and these still live Africa traditional society way.
Tour Activities:
- Gorilla tracking Bwindi
- Batwa cultural encounter
Day 1: Pick up and drive to Bwindi impenetrable national park
The vehicle delivery at either the airport or the hotel will happen in the early morning before the sunset and drive to Bwindi impenetrable national park. This is because of long journey involved from Kampala or Entebbe to Kigezi region which takes about 9-10 hours.
Travel distance: 507km
Travel time: About 9hours
Day2: Gorilla Tracking Experience & Batwa Cultural Encounter
Early in the morning, you will drive away from your lodge to the Bwindi park head offices to catch up the 7: 00am briefing. The briefing consists of telling the gorilla trackers the dos and don’ts in the wild, expectation of the trekking and verification of the gorilla permits. There is also allocation of gorilla families to the visitors basing on the physical abilities and interest. You will be put in a group of 8 people to track your allocated gorilla families. You will either walk to the starting point or drive to it, this will depend on the distance of the starting point from the headquarters. When you get to the starting point, you will lead to the jungles for the trekking under the guidance of the park ranger. The park ranger will give you a commentary walk, he will narrate to you the history of the park and the gorilla family you will be tracking. After a long trek on the steep and sloppy trails through the tropical rain forests, you will meet the mountain gorillas in their exact locale.
Most trackers get nervy at the first sight of the huge silverback as it stares at them when they walk near its family. At the meeting of the gorillas, you will interact with them by observing their social characters. The little ones sometimes break the 7-meter social distancing and come to play with the trackers. You will also take photos and videos of the gorillas.
After one hour of interaction with the gorillas, you will lead out of the forests to meet the safari guide to drive you back to the lodge for lunch and have some rest.
When you get a short rest, you will lead out for Batwa cultural encounter in the late afternoon. The Batwa people are the shortest people in Uganda. These are marginalized and live in absolute poverty but their cultural values is their pride. They never drop them and it is rewarding to the Batwa since many tourists find it interesting. You will be left in awe when you mix and mingle with Batwa people. Their rudimentary way of doing things in this technological era is amusing.
Day 3: Travel back to Kampala for departure
This will be the last day of your trip and you will spend the whole day driving back to Kampala but you will have a stopover in any city en route for a lunch break. When you reach Kampala, you will drop off the rental car.
Travel distance: 507km
Travel time: About 9hours