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The 5 days itinerary in Bwindi Forest National Park starts with a flight from Entebbe to Kisoro Airstrip where you meet your safari guide and proceed the impenetrable forest to enjoy a stay with man’s third cousin the mighty African giants that you need to search for in the large expanse of greenery. The search creates one of most remarkable moments and special feeling in life.
What a beautiful way to spend your 5 days in Uganda
Your driver will be waiting for you at the airport exit lounge with an airport sign to have you transferred to K-Hotel. K-Hotel is a luxury accommodation with well facilitated rooms and all the amenities are classy and trendy to offer an executive and expensive stay like free internet access, a television set, an executive reading table, a safety deposit box among others.
K –Hotel offers the perfect views of Lake Victoria and botanical gardens from your room’s balcony. It is also just a walkable distance to Victoria shopping mall and the botanical gardens. Enjoy a cup of coffee on the room balcony with the beautiful sun setting in the back drop of the second largest fresh water body in the world. The hotel has a gym and massage spa for you to rejuvenate and refresh before you proceed on your safari the next day.
Overnight at K-hotel.
Your driver will meet you at the Hotel and transfer you back to Entebbe International Airport for your morning scheduled flight to Kisoro Airstrip.
Domestic flight Expert tips
Internal flights – Luggage allowance – all domestic flights with in Uganda have luggage restrictions that range from aircraft size, it could be combined as body and luggage but mainly luggage is restricted to 15kgs per person in soft bags and the weight payload per person is 75kgs per person majorly for safety purposes. You could need to book an extra seat for weight allowance.
Meet your guide and transfer from Kisoro Airstrip to Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge. The drive is approximately 2 and half hours. Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge is more of an eco-lodge surrounded by the green forest canopy of Bwindi Forest National Park with room classifications of cottages, family villas, and luxury suites offering a tranquil stay, all rooms are ensuite with a fire place and a private balcony. The lodge was hand constructed using the raw materials like the papyrus that was used to make the ceiling and also the floor is made of the volcanic rock to offer you the natural and African feel. While at the lodge, you have the full view of the three volcanoes namely: mount Sabinyo, mount Muhavura, and mount Gahinga – enjoy the magnificent views and the exceptional hospitality of the staff and each room has its own room service.
Reach at the lodge, relax and proceed later for enjoy an amazing experience with the local community around Bwindi. The Batwa were among the first indigenous occupants of Bwindi but ended up on the outskirts of Bwindi Forest because they were evicted from the forest. It is a 3 – 4 hours hike to the Batwa Village from the park gate.
Once at the Batwa Village, You will meet with the Batwa elders and their families to learn and experience their daily lives. You don’t have worry about the language barrier, there is always an interpreter available on site to help you relive the unique traditional lives and practices of Batwa. The Batwa people are extremely attached to bush life and the forest and this is portrayed in their way of living, the food they eat, the way they hunt, their kind of entertainment, the style of their homes and their burial ground among others.
Visitors are even given the chance to learn how to light a fire with just a stick and how to shoot a target with traditional weapons.
Lunch and dinner plus an overnight at Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge.
Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla safari lodge is located 300m from the Nkuringo Sector visitor’s reception; a 10-15 minute walk to the gorilla trekking briefing point. After your breakfast, your guide will transfer you to Uganda wildlife Authority (UWA) Park headquarters. While at UWA park headquarters, you will be requested to register in the UWA book before proceeding for a briefing by the ranger guide about the dos and don’ts during your trekking like no flash lights when photographing gorillas and after you will be allocated a gorilla family to trek and you will match out with your ranger on your day’s excursion.
Get ready to face the gentle giants of Africa, dream come true right! You will set off from the park headquarters through the demarcated trails in the dense forests with your ranger to search out for the gorillas, the gorillas are wild animals that move from one location to another looking for food which makes the trek sometimes go on for 9 hours, however this could be different because you might find the gorillas a few hours after the start of your trek. Although the gorillas are always on the move, the chance of seeing the gorillas is at 95%.
After you have located a family, you are allowed to spend an hour with them, take photos of them, and observe them go on with their daily activities, a very life changing moment and feeling that many have expressed as exhilarating, enthralling and indeed humbling.
Although the trek mainly focuses on the gorillas, you will sight other primates like monkeys, birds and rare tree species.
After the time with the gorillas, return to the Park headquarters for your certificate of participation and your guide will return you to the lodge.
Tips for trekking
Breakfast, Lunch and dinner plus an overnight at Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge.
Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge is 23 kilometers from the Rushaga Sector briefing point, a 45-minute drive from the Lodge. After your breakfast, depart from the Lodge with picnic lunch to proceed to Bwindi National park for Gorilla Habituation. Gorilla habituation are the phases gorillas go through to get more familiar and comfortable with human surrounding. The process takes 2 years before the gorillas are allowed to meet with the humans. The difference between Gorilla trekking and Gorilla Habituation is that with gorilla trekking you spend only an hour with the Gorillas and proceed out of the forest while with Gorilla habituation, you will have a maximum of four hours with the gorillas observing their interaction with humans in the presence of a researcher who collects data that is used to learn and understand the different lives of mountain gorillas.
Gorilla Habituation is only done in Rushaga, the southern sector of Bwindi National park in the whole of Africa. There are only 2 families that are habituated and only four people are allowed to trek a family a day therefore only a total of 8 pax are allowed to participate in Gorilla Habituation a day.
Breakfast, Lunch and dinner plus an overnight at Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Safari Lodge.
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