Gorilla Trekking in Uganda

The administrative capital of Uganda until the Sixties, today Entebbe is a laid-back, waterside town with Palm-fringed promenades lapped by Lake Victoria. Most visitors arrive here – it has the country’s only international airport – and spend a pleasant time acclimatizing by strolling the lawns of the excellent botanical gardens dating back to 1898 and sipping organic coffee from the borderlands of nearby Rwanda. 

Named after the plunging torrents where the Nile River is forced through a crack in the Rift Valley escarpment resulting in a foaming, furious waterfall, this national park is famed for the spectacular birdlife that calls it home. More than 460 species flit between the breathtaking Budongo canopy forest and riverine woodline, while elusive shoebill storks wade out from the soft riverbank. 

Given that it now echoes with the call of more than 13 species of primate, it’s hard to comprehend that this forest was used for logging until it became a national park in 1993. An expedition here reveals life bursting through every crevice, from the rare mushrooms that creep through the deep darkness of the forest floor to the canopy, where red colobus and L'Hoest’s monkeys swing between the branches of giant strangler fig trees. The star of the show is undoubtedly the chimpanzees and visitors have a 99% chance of seeing our closest living relatives in the wild. 

Located on a key migration corridor at the foot of the southwest’s snow-capped Rwenzori Mountains, known as the Mountains of the Moon for their lunar-white landscape, this rich tapestry of lakes, savannah grasslands and wetlands are roamed by many of the pin-ups of African safaris. Leopards, herds of elephants and buffalo are all frequently sighted, as are a pack of tree-climbing lions – one of just two populations in the world known to deploy this curious skill. 

A mist-topped tangle of treetops, strangling roots and coiling ferns, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is one of African conservation’s true success stories. Once the site of civil unrest, today it is a mysterious wonderland that nurtures Africa’s largest population of habituated mountain gorillas. Trek through farmland and foliage to spend an intimate hour watching their loving, complex family dramas play out at your feet.