Bwindi forest is home to more than half of the entire world’s mountain gorilla population and as such, mountain gorilla tours Uganda is the specialty of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.
This was one of the inspirational activities we were to perform here but on addition, we added other extra six activities that made our safari an amazing one.
On our first day we arrived in Uganda and we were welcomed by nature adventure Africa safaris limited a local tour company in Uganda.
We were taken to the west where we had a rest at Silver back Lodge in Buhoma sector, on the second day we went for briefing at the park headquarters at 8:00AM where the rangers guided us on the location of gorilla family we were to visit.
We found other groups of people who were to visit other gorilla groups and only 8 people were allowed to visit a particular gorilla group a day and the forest has more than 14 groups at the moment but in different locations.
After briefing, we then entered the forest with our guide who was ahead of us and another one was behind us to clear the trail.
The trek took us 4hours since the park rangers had entered early in the forest to track the gorillas from the point where they were last seen the previous day. This is the reason why most tourist like to do trekking from Uganda, after finding the gorillas.
Our one hour with the gorillas went by in a flash. We will never forget this experience indeed! we enjoyed our lunch pack and met our way out of the forest and back to the starting point to receive our gorilla trekking certificate to confirm our successful participation in Gorilla trekking in Bwindi.
On the third day, it was massive since we went for Gorilla Habituation Experience as another activity that one can do here from the park, our first trek we were not contented with the 1hour trek since we enjoyed the gorillas.
Gorilla habituation experience was a mind blowing! Activity in Bwindi, this time around we were to spend the whole day with the gorillas as they are prepared for human interaction thus spending more hours observing and learning more about the mountain gorilla lifestyle with the rangers.
On the fourth day we went back to the park for another activity which was Birding; indeed, this is the best place for bird lovers or anyone interested in a birding safari in Uganda, this is a true birder’s haven with 350 species noted here.
Among the noted species included the Short-tailed Warbler and Blue-headed Sunbird. Birding in Bwindi takes place along 4 major trails; the main trail which we followed to enjoy these species, the Buhoma Waterfall Trail and along the bamboo zone and Mubwindi Swamp trail in Ruhija, this is the best in all.
On the fifth day went for a hike commonly termed as a Nature Walk; There are six nature trails found in Buhoma for. We followed the Munyanga Waterfall and we started from Buhoma along the River Ivi – Nkuringo trail and turned into the sensational sight of the falls within the park.
Other trails include the Rushura Hill Walk which passes through one forest shared by two countries. On a clear day, here we were told that one can have a stunning view of lake Gorge and Edward plus the Virunga ranges.
Our sixth day was quite different from the usual one as we went for Cycling/Mountain biking, which is another latest adventure within Bwindi impenetrable forest national park. This is a communal activity which was named “Ride for a woman”.
It is arranged by Buhoma Community Rest Camp and took us 13 kilometres up to Ivi River. We departed from the park headquarters in the morning and the round trip took us 7hours, this enabled us to have a stunning view of some wildlife such as bush-bucks, black-and-white Colobus and red-tailed monkeys.
On our seventh day in Uganda we decided to interact with the local people to establish how they spare their day to day lives within the area, this Cultural/Community Tours led us to the Batwa experience in Buhoma since they are the most popularized and well known cultural experiences in Bwindi but there are more interesting and rewarding cultural experiences and community tours in Bwindi that exposed us to the local Bakiga community culture and the Batwa communities.
On the eighth day, we traveled back to Kampala for our departures and we credit nature adventure for the great worker done in hosting us in Uganda plus the wonderful services we enjoyed while with them.
