Driving to Bwindi from Entebbe is a minimum of 7 hours on both surfaced and dirt roads. You can avoid the long drives with this fly-in gorilla safari to Bwindi with 2 gorilla trekking experiences with pre-booked flights from Entebbe to Bwindi and flying back to Entebbe on Day 4. This fly-in gorilla trekking tour is available on any day of the week subject to the availability of the gorilla tracking permits.
On arrival at Entebbe international airport, you will be welcomed by our driver guide who will transfer you to your lodge for dinner and overnight. K hotel will give you the best services during your stay and transfer you to Kajjansi airstrip for your flight to kihihi airstrip where you will meet our driver guide who will welcome you and then transfer you to Bwindi national park for your gorilla experience. You will check in at sanctuary forest camp for lunch and resting.
Early in the morning, your driver will be meeting you at your Bwindi lodge/ camp to ensure you are all well prepared for your gorilla tracking exercise. This is normally after you have had your breakfast. You are then driven to the park office for the pre-gorilla trekking briefing. Here, more information about the conservation and ecology of mountain gorillas is shared and short video clips about the gorilla might also be played. Sometimes, a piece of local cultural music and dance performance from the communities is performed by the local women’s group.
You will then be allocated to the gorilla group. A group of 8 person will visit one gorilla family. Each group is allocated a team of ranger escorts and assisting trackers. You will consider hiring a porter to assist you to carry your backpack as these can be so tiring as you trek through the jungles of the thick forest undergrowth. The cost of hiring a porter for the gorilla trek is $15. For most gorilla families, you will go for 20-30-minutes’ drive to the trailhead for the gorilla trek but for some, it is just a walk away from the park office.
You will go through thick forest undergrowth with paths being made that day using machetes. The trekking can be physically challenging but there are several breaks along the way to allow you to catch your breath, and also for the rangers to give more information about the forest and the other wildlife species you shall be meeting as you hike to the gorillas in Bwindi.
It will take 2-4 hours to reach the location of the gorillas. When you finally encounter the mountain gorillas, you are allowed 1 hour with them. These gorillas have been habituated to human presence. So, they will still be wild in a way but won’t be running to hide from you or trying to attack you when you visit them. As you go about enjoying the mountain gorillas the rangers shall be giving you more information about them. They shall also be making clear of the shrubs and bushes so that you have better views and angles for taking photographs. You will descend for lunch as well as an afternoon Batwa experience.
The experience begins with a nature-walk, hike through the forest seeing the forest in a new way, through the eyes of the original people of the Forest. It will also show you how they lived in huts made of grass, trees, the use of tree-houses, caves. Experience the Batwa village life of old, the sharing, of living as a community, as a people, learn the things that they revered and cared for and almost lost.
Take a visit to a traditional Batwa homestead and learn from the women how to prepare, cook and serve a meal. You will also have the opportunity to sample the prepared dishes. Talk to the medicine men and learn about the medicinal properties of the forest flora. Back to lodge for dinner and overnight.
On day three, you will take on a second gorilla trekking. You have a chance to view a totally different gorilla family behaving differently from the first one. Just like humans, mountain gorillas’ families have different behaviours, more so when you are around. Also, the composition of every gorilla family is very different from the other with some having as many as 30 gorillas while others only have 5 mountain gorillas.
You will descend to the park headquarters for the second trekking certificate and lunch at your lodge. You will have enough time to relax in the afternoon at the lodge reviewing all the photos you took during the trek as well as sorting the best for your gallery. Enjoy dinner and overnight here.
Early morning after breakfast, the lodge shuttle will transfer you to kihihi airstrip for your flight to Entebbe where you will connect for your back home flight.
