10-Days Mountain Gorillas, Chimps & Uganda Wildlife Safari

You will begin the panoramic drive north-west through the famous Luwero Triangle & Masindi Town to arrive in Murchison Falls NP in time for lunch at the spectacularly situated site located at the top of Murchison Falls. The park is the largest wildlife reserve in Uganda & is divided by the famous River Nile into two almost equal halves - where it has to squeeze itself through the legendary Murchison Falls, an impossibly narrow 7-meter gap in a cleft rock that creates the powerful explosion of white water. During this drive (7 hrs drive), you will be rewarded with splendid views of the countryside.

You will arrive to Murchison Falls NP in the afternoon, have lunch & go for your afternoon game drive where you will expect to see many wildlife animals & keep your fingers crossed for lion & leopard. The game track network converges at Delta Point where the Nile flows north out of Lake Albert; this is a convenient place to stop for refreshments & view water birds offshore & distant hippos.

Please note: White Rhinos tracking at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary is optional at additional fees of $50 per person.

On this day, your safari breakfast will be served before the day breaks so that you can start your morning game drive as the sun comes up. Sunrise is the best time for wildlife spotting as animals tend to be the most active during the “golden hours”, when the first rays of sunshine come to rest on the savannah. Elephants, buffalo and several species of antelope are some of the characters you may come across today, & if you’re lucky, you may even spot a lion or leopard.

You will return for lunch in the afternoon & go for a 3-hours boat safari upstream on the Victoria Nile to the falls where you will pass by breathtaking scenery, as well as many crocodiles, hundreds of hippos, buffaloes, water birds, monkeys & other animals that come down to the Nile. The boat will drop you near the waterfall for your hike (1-1.5 hours) up to the top of the falls (optional at additional cost of $15 pp).

On this day, you will enjoy your last sunrise & breakfast in this beautiful National Park in Uganda with a walk to top of Murchison Falls for about 30 minutes to 1 hour & transfer to Kibale National Park with several stops along the way for beautiful scenery, landscape viewing among others before reaching Fort Portal tourism city for your lunch at Fort Portal Garden Restaurant.

In the afternoon after your lunch, you will choose to go for a guided Crater Lakes & Plantation Walk. The landscape south of Fort Portal is dotted with picturesque crater lakes, some over 400m deep. These crater lakes are breathtakingly beautiful to behold and offer one of the best hiking places in the area. The hikes lead you through several crater lakes, villages, tea plantations, and waterfalls.

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Go for a guided walk in Nature at Amabere caves where you will be able to view stalagmites, crater lakes, and bird viewing, hill climbing among others. Amabere Ga Nyina Mwiru Caves is a historic site believed to be the birthplace of the founding King of the Bachwezi. The Amabere Ga Nyina Mwiru meaning ‘Breasts of Nyinamwiru’ were named after the stalactites that form in the caves. They resemble the breasts of a woman, though some would say it looks more like a cow’s udder.

On this day, you will wake up early and have breakfast before going deeper into the forest on a Swamp Walk in the Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary; home to 8 primate species, over 200 bird species, butterflies and various reptiles.

Alternatively go to Kibale National Park for optional Chimpanzees Tracking experience (at additional cost of $200 per person) where you will have the opportunity to follow an experienced guide into the forest to observe these fascinating creatures at a close range. Watching them interact with each other and go about their daily routine of grooming, playing and foraging is an incredible experience. While your chances of encountering chimpanzees are high during your tracking excursion compared to any other tracking points in Uganda, it is never 100% guaranteed. These are, after all, wild animals with wills and minds of their own! The park is also home for 10 other primates including l’ hoestes, red colobus, blues, red-tailed, and gray-cheeked mangabey. The guide will provide detailed explanations, not only on primates but on all the forest fauna and flora and will ensure that your walk is both informative and enjoyable.

In the afternoon, you will transfer to Queen Elizabeth National Park for lunch & later in the day when the sun is high in the sky & the animals make their way to the river for a drink, you will head to Kazinga Channel for an exciting boat safari. You will spot more hippos today than you can possibly imagine. Herds of elephants & buffalos will also be wandering down to the shoreline to bath in the cooling waters. It will be a wonderful experience.

Early in the morning, you will set out for a game drive in the park. Queen Elizabeth National Park’s diverse ecosystem of grassy plains, tropical forests, rivers, swamps, lakes, and volcanic craters makes it home to an incredible abundance of wildlife. Game drives in this park, with the massive Rwenzori Mountains as a backdrop, provide excellent opportunities to see lions, leopards, giant forest hogs, Cape buffalo, elephants, defassa waterbuck, Uganda Kob, Topi, and bushbuck.

You will return for lunch & later in the day when the sun is high in the sky & the animals make their way to the river for a drink, you will head to Kazinga Channel for an exciting boat safari. You will spot more hippos today than you can imagine. Herds of elephants & buffalos will also be wandering down to the shoreline to bathe in the cooling waters. It will be a wonderful experience.

After breakfast, you will drive to the “Switzerland of Africa” area known as the Kigezi Highlands with its terraced hillside and winding roads. Along the way, you will enjoy spectacular views of the mountainous countryside and this comes with many incredible photography opportunities. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is located in the southwestern part of Uganda on the rim of the Rift Valley. More notably, this “impenetrable forest” protects over 400 population of mountain gorillas – approximately half of the population in the world, among which are some habituated groups, that can be tracked by visitors. OR Mgahinga Gorilla National Park. Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is one of the luckiest and smallest parks in Uganda where the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas are found and it happens to be part of the Virunga massif where more than 480 mountain gorillas are known to be living.

You will have a stopover for Chimps tracking at Kalinzu Forest Reserve & go for a game drive at Ishasha Sector, Queen Elizabeth National Park if time allows. Ishasha is most famous as the place where tree climbing lions can be spotted. Here you will have an extended game drive as you search for the tree climbing lions.

After your breakfast, you will hike to the park headquarters just meters from the lodge for a briefing by UWA guides before transferring to the starting point for gorilla tracking. You will enjoy Mountain gorilla tracking in Bwindi Impenetrable NP. Bwindi has the biggest concentration of Gorillas, given its small size. The search for Gorillas goes through the thick untamed rainforest, where you’ll be scrambling over mossy rocks & through deep undergrowth. It isn't the easiest of activities & will be arduous, but the encounter is well worth the effort. Watching Gorillas in their natural habitat is an experience that will last a lifetime. The experienced ranger guides will willingly share with you a lot of information about the history and lifestyle of these Gorillas. Your tracking experience will be an exciting, yet challenging, journey along forested slopes, tangled vines, thick vegetation & bamboo forests before you reach the territory of these gentle giants.

After Mountain Gorillas tracking, you will go to visit the Batwa community for them to take you through their traditions like traditional dance, beer making, and setting fire among others.

Just like gorilla tracking, you will go for Golden Monkey tracking starting with pre-tracking/trekking briefing at the park headquarters. Hiking through the forests to sight the golden monkeys is not so strenuous like gorilla trekking because golden monkeys live in lower areas, so you will not track for more than 3 hours. When you encounter the golden monkey family, you will be given one hour to spend with them (to take photographs and observe their behaviour). With this activity, there is no minimum number of visitors and the age limit is 12 years.

In the afternoon after your lunch, you will go for Canoe/Boat ride on a scenic Lake Bunyonyi. This lake is the only one where you can ride a canoe to visit all the 29 islands on this lake including the floating Island and the punishment Island where the young girls who got pregnant before marriage would be dumped and left to die.

After an early breakfast, you will leave Lake Bunyonyi & drive to Lake Mburo National Park via Kabale Town. You will be welcomed into the park by various herds of zebra, buffalo, Eland, and antelope as they graze in the savannah grass.

You will arrive in the afternoon, have lunch & go for an afternoon game drive where you will be assured of spotting Zebras, Buffalos, Impalas, Warthogs, and Waterbucks among others. Also, when it comes to the birds, you will view the malachite kingfishers, African Fish eagles, blue-headed weavers, Rufuos-tailed starlings, Herons, pelicans, the rare shoebill as well as the cormorants.

On this day, you will enjoy your last sunrise in this beautiful side of Uganda with a guided walk-in nature (walking safari with a guide) where you will spot Zebras, Giraffes and Eland, Topi, Antelope, Cape buffaloes among others on close range. Take the Trail to the top of the hills and see Lake Mburo and beyond. From this vantage point, you will have a great view of 9 of the twelve lakes surrounding Lake Mburo National Park.

After your walking safari (guided walk-in nature), your guide will drive you across the beautiful sceneries back to Kampala or Entebbe or drop you off at Entebbe International Airport 3 hours before your departure time with a stopover at the equator for equator experience and photos moments.

Did we hit all the items on your travel bucket list for this safari? If not, don’t worry. We specialize in tailor-made tours and can customize this program to create your dream trip. Get in touch to create your personalized program.