Uganda Primates Galore & Wildlife Safari

Your international flight will land you in Entebbe, a small town on the Lake Victoria Peninsula 30 kilometers outside the capital. Here you'll spend a night to begin the gorilla safari in Uganda the following morning.

If you arrive early and have a couple of free hours, you can do some activities around Entebbe to put you in the local scene mood.

Shoebill Tracking: is one of the most requested activities that will require an extra cost. The shoebill, a giant grotesque stork-like bird that looks like it flew out of Darwin's evolutionary stories, wades the mashes of Lake Victoria, preying on lungfish and frogs. It's quite a rare sighting that leaves many travellers in awe. You take a local fisherman's boat for about 2-3 hours in Mabamba Bay swamp, where hundreds of rare water bird species have been recorded.

Alternatively, you can take a walk or ride to the mall to buy a few things like trekking boots and exchange currency for tipping your service people.

Other activities include backroad biking with a local guide, leisurely walks in botanical gardens, visiting Ngamba Chimps Island, and brick oven Pizza evening at Goretti's.

Main Destination: Mabamba Bay, Lake Victoria

Accommodation: Papyrus Guest House
Mid-range guest house located near Entebbe Airport

Meals & Drinks: Meals at own expense
Drinks not included

Start the Uganda primates galore and wildlife jaunt with an early breakfast. Journey to Western Uganda across gorgeous emerald landscapes, cattle ranches, and banana and tea plantations stretching as far as the eye can see. Watch the rolling hills and cultivated terraces drive by as you breathe the fresh breeze in the back of a four-by-four cruiser through the green country—Stop en route at Mpambire to watch drums made using old archaic methods at the equator. It is a 5-7-hour country drive to the lodge.

After lunch at the lodge, a game viewing drive in the park and 1-hour boat ride on Lake Mburu to admire the beautiful landscapes and search for close encounters with the local fauna: bushbucks, bush duikers, crocodiles, hippos, plenty of water birds, etc.

Main Destination: Lake Mburo National Park

Accommodation: Rwakobo Rock
Mid-range to luxury lodge outside Lake Mburo National Park.

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water included

Enjoy an early morning game drive in the park, then continue to Western Uganda across its rolling hills, tea plantations, tropical rainforest, and towards the Virunga Volcanos' majestic chain.

Drive via Mbarara, Kabale towns before heading onto the 32-km countryside dirt road to Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge, on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Keep your eyes out on the rugged Tuscany-like landscapes: the views are to die for! On the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, on a magnificent ridge, sits Nkuringo Lodge’s ten luxurious cottages.

The private cottages we've booked you in on this Uganda primates and wildlife vacation safari have a distinctive elegance and surprising luxury amid forest trees, flowers, and shrubs. Locally styled furnishings grace the spacious rooms, and light fills the space from your private viewing deck over the forest swath and beyond the entire Virunga Volcanoes chain.

Main Destination: Lake Mburo National Park

Accommodation: Rwakobo Rock
Mid-range to luxury lodge outside Lake Mburo National Park.

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water included

Wake up early, have your breakfast, and be at the trailhead in time for the gorilla tracking briefing. Your first experience with the primates galore will start at Nkuringo visitor center, about a 10-meter walk from Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge—our driver can drive you for that distance if you so choose.

The gorilla tracking briefing usually starts at 8:00 am. You’ll be assigned the gorilla group for tracking with six other trekkers and given the general observable rules in the jungle. You’ll be escorted into the African wilderness with two gun-baring rangers (for your security) and a tracker/guide with a machete to lead your way.

Once you have found the gorillas, you will be allowed to spend an hour with them. Keep your camera silent (no shutter sound of flash photography), observe a 10 meters distance from the gorillas, and keep your mask on. Your time in the forest cannot be pre-determined as every day differs from the previous.

There are great activities at the lodge to engage the rest of the day, or stay at your cottage, order-in and enjoy the enchanting views of the dreamy landscape.

Main Destination: Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Accommodation: Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinks included (soft and house wines)

As you leave your first experience with the primates in Bwindi, you'll join the local walking guides on an ancient hiking trail through the mystic Bwindi jungle, from the Nkuringo south side to the Buhoma visitor center in the north. At the forest gates, the surprised traveler will be forced to forget their city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish, and wrap themselves in the majestic beauties of the ancient jungle.

For 4-5 hours, you’ll be guided by a local expert who’ll furnish you with ancient tales and incredible forest knowledge and bring you close to being one with the forest trails. If you’re lucky, you’ll meet some wild forest inhabitants like chimps, forest elephants, duikers, forest buffalo, and more.

At the other end of the walking trail, your driver will be ready to whisk you off through the Ishasha savannah plains, where he’ll lazily drive for you to catch sight of the incredible tree-climbing lions. You’ll be at Kataara Lodge in time for dinner.

Main Destination: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and Isashasha Sector

Accommodation: Katara Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Full Board (Breakfast, lunch & dinner)
Drinking water is included

Get close to the big game animals on an early morning game drive and a boat safari on Kazinga Channel, famous for hosting the largest population of hippos.

While on a game drive on Kasenyi tracks, you will encounter animals like enormous herds of elephants and buffalo. You’ll also spot many interesting antelope species such as Uganda kob, topi, and bushbuck. The giant forest hog is unusually easy to spot. Search around the Kasenyi tracks for the elusive leopard.

On the Kazinga Channel boat safari trip that will set off at 14:00, you can catch sight of elephants, buffalo, waterbuck, Uganda kob, and large hippo pods daily. Keep an eye open for the enormous water monitor lizard, which is common in the riverine scrub, as well as crocodiles.

After the boat launch, you’ll get onto the highway with the Rwenzori Mountains backdrop and drive north to Kibale National Park, arriving just in time for dinner.

Main Destination: Queen Elizabeth National Park

Accommodation: Turaco Treetops Lodge

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinking water in included.

Wake up early and be at the visitor center by 7:30 am for the chimp trekking briefing. Kibale is the best place to watch chimpanzees up close in their natural setting, with over 1500 chimpanzees under the park’s rainforest canopy and a dozen other primate species.

On your morning trek to find the chimps, it’s prevalent for other primates to cross your paths, like the rare L’Hoest’s monkey, red colobus monkey, black & white colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey, olive baboon, and grey-cheeked mangabey.

Your trekking group will set out to find a troop of human-habituated chimpanzees. Guided by an expert tracker, you’ll head into the jungle in small groups, looking out for tale-tale signs of the chimp’s direction and listening for loud calls. Visitors are allowed from 1 hr to almost the whole day with the chimpanzees, and the quality and intimacy of each sighting can vary highly.

Main Destination: Kibale National Park

Accommodation: Turaco Treetops
Mid-range lodge bordering Kibale NP without fences

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinking water (Other drinks not included

After breakfast, lazily get your bags to end this Uganda primates galore and wildlife safari adventure with a country drive. After breakfast, you’ll drive through the gorgeous Fort Portal country with the fading Rwenzori mountains escorting you out of western Uganda to Entebbe through Kampala.

Main Destination: Entebbe International Airport (Entebbe)

Accommodation: No accommodation (End of tour)

Meals & Drinks: Breakfast (Lunch & dinner not included)
Drinks not included