Gorilla and Primate Safaris

Gorilla and primate safaris centre on tracking wild mountain gorillas and chimpanzees through forest terrain, in small groups led by a Uganda Wildlife Authority ranger guide. Trekking is on foot, on unmarked forest trails, and the walk to reach a gorilla family can take anywhere from under an hour to most of a day depending on where the group has moved to that morning. Once you find the gorillas, visitors get one hour with them, kept at a minimum distance of 7 metres for the health of both people and gorillas.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park are Uganda's two gorilla trekking sites, each divided into separate trekking sectors with their own habituated gorilla families. Kibale National Park is the main site for chimpanzee tracking, though chimps are also tracked at Kyambura Gorge near Queen Elizabeth National Park and at Kalinzu Forest. A typical trip combines one gorilla trekking day in Bwindi or Mgahinga with a chimp tracking day in Kibale, plus travel time between parks.

Permits are limited and must be booked in advance: a foreign non-resident gorilla permit costs $800 per person in high season and $600 in the low season months of April, May and November, while East African citizens pay UGX 300,000. Chimp permits in Kibale cost $250 for foreign non-residents and UGX 250,000 for East African citizens. Anyone showing signs of a cold, flu or other communicable illness will be turned away from gorilla trekking, since gorillas are susceptible to human respiratory illness.

This is best suited to travellers reasonably fit for a few hours of forest walking on uneven, sometimes steep and muddy ground, and who are comfortable with a schedule that depends on where the animals are on a given day rather than a fixed itinerary.