Gorillas and chimps in Uganda, A great way to kick-start 2018
Hi eveyone!
To kick of 2018 we went to Uganda in January, in hope to meet the mythical Mountain Gorillas and noisy Chimpanzees and of course to se if Uganda lives up to its reputation as the "pearl of Africa" :)
We made our travel arrangement with a local tour operator called "Gorillas and wildlife safaris". Ivan at the office was a great guy, who always answered quickly and gave us good advice. They were not the cheapest but far from the priciest. We had a 9 day safari starting in Bwindi NP and ending in Kibale NP, we added two days of sightseeing in Rwanda. We had a quite "adventurous" itinerary which included Gorilla tracking, Gorilla habituation experience - the habitutation is different from a normal Gorilla track where you tag along with the trackers to find the gorillas and if you are lucky you can spend up to 4 hours with them. We also joined a lion researcher one day in Queen Elizabeth NP did the Golden Monkey habituation in Mgahinga NP and finished with the habituation experience with Chimpanzees in Kibale NP.
Our itinerary looked like this:
Day one - Short visit to Amsterdam (we would not do the short transfer time again after our race through Heatrow last year going to Botswana)
Day two-three - Visit to Rwanda and Kigali for some sightseeing
Day four - Pick up in Rwanda and transfer to Uganda and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest! Accommodation: Nkuringo Gorilla Lodge
Day five: Gorilla Habituation experience in Bwindi NP. Accommodation: Nkuringo Gorilla Lodge.
Day six: Golden Monkey Habituation experience in Mgahinga NP. Accommodation: Engagi Lodge
Day seven: Gorilla tracking in Bwindi NP. Accomodation: Engagi Lodge
Day eight: Transfer to Queen Elizabeth NP, and game drive in the park. Accommodation: Bush Lodge, cottage
Day nine: Lion tracking with researcher and boat ride on the Kazinga Channel. Accommodation: Bush Lodge, cottage
Day ten: Transfer to Kibale and in the afternoon we did a swamp walk at Bigodi Wetland sanctuary. Accommodation: Kibale Forest camp
Day eleven: Chimpanzee Habituation experience in Kibale NP. Accommodation: Kibale Forest camp
Day twelve: Morning walk in Kibale forest and then transfer to Entebbe airport.
I don´t need to tell you how excited we were to go on this trip right? :) We have been to safari in Africa two times before but this trip was going to be something totally different! Bags packed and we were on our way to our first stop in Amsterdam.
We had one night in Amsterdam and with our plane leaving at 9 AM the day after we decide to stay at a hotel at the airport. We choosed citizenM Schiphol Airport, a really cool, modern hotel with lots of character :) The rooms were quite small :) but the big comfy bed, lots of movies and dinner downstairs made it the perfect place to stay before taking of.
Before we crashed at our hotel we did some sightseeing in Amsterdam and did a boat tour on the channels. The channels was displaying a light show from different artist, that made the tour very cozy and with some gluhwein also warm :)
After a good night's sleep we were ready to board the plane, some more than others...
Next stop Rwanda, Kigali!