Enjoy an early breakfast journey to Western Uganda across the beautiful landscape of central Uganda, to the beautiful Rwakobo Rock elevated over the Mburo savannah plains. Stop-over en-route at the Equator crossing to take some photos and Mpambire, to watch the ancient making of traditional drums.

After lunch at the lodge, you can take a game drive on the park tracks and a 1-hour boat ride on Lake Mburu to view some of Africa's most admired wildlife and beautiful landscapes.

Animals you may encounter on the drive include bushbucks, zebra, giraffe, bush duikers, crocodiles, hippos, plenty of water birds.

The great apes experience in Uganda drive from Entebbe to Lake Mburo National Park takes about 5-7 hours.

• Accommodation: Rwakobo Rock Lodge (Cottage)
• Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner + Drinking water

After an early breakfast, take a game drive or relax at the lodge and prepare for another 6-hour journey across Uganda's southwestern highlands.

You'll drive on beautifully paved roads across rolling hills, tea plantations, tropical rainforest, and towards the end, the majestic chain of the Virunga Volcanoes. Pass via Mbarara, Kabale, and Kisoro before reaching Nkuringo, on the southern edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

The last two hours of this great apes experience in Uganda journey will be on a dirt road but moderately comfortable in the 4x4 private safari truck until you reach the lodge.

Check into your room and find a relaxing place to enjoy the best views of the jungle resort. Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge brags of its stunning views of the Virunga Mountains chain, and its elevated position above the Bwindi canopy shows off the forest's entire swaths from your room's balcony. You'll be sleeping above the mountain gorilla's free-ranging home.

The drive from Lake Mburo to Nkuringo takes about 6-7 hours.

• Accommodation: Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge (Private Cottage)
• Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner + Drinking water

The highlight of the great apes experience in Uganda comes early into the journey with an adventure into the misty gorilla jungles.

After a very early breakfast, depending on where you'll be trekking gorillas (Nkuringo or Rushaga), you'll be at the trailhead by 8:00 am. The lodge's chef will give you a packed lunch and drinking water to carry in your backpack.

If you're tracking gorillas in Rushaga, your private classic Uganda safari driver will transfer you to the trailhead, which is about 45 minutes drive from the lodge. Nkuringo trailhead is a 5-minute walking distance.

After the briefing, you'll be escorted by a guide and ranger with 7 other trekkers into the mist jungle to meet the incredible mountain gorilla family.

The beauty of the Bwindi rainforest is spectacular. The area offers a dramatic, steeply forested landscape and is incredibly dense, but crisscrossed by numerous animal trails allowing access to gorillas. The time you'll take to reach the gorilla group will be determined by the movements of these great apes. Otherwise, it usually takes from 30 mins to about 4 hours to find the gorillas.

Hiking through the misty jungle, encountering different animal and plant species on the trail will keep you on the edge until you finally find the gorilla family. You'll spend only one precious hour with the gentle giants, savor every second and minimize your time with the lense.

If you're doing the gorilla habituation experience in Rushaga, you'll spend close to four hours with the gorilla, more time with the gorillas than the gorilla trekking experience.

After your mountain gorilla encounter and out of the jungle, relax at the lodge and, for those who like, can either stroll through the native's community center or drive up to the “Top of the World” for an amazing 360 views over southwestern Uganda's highlands and beyond to the Virunga mountains chain. A great way to spend an evening after the gorilla tracking and to enjoy a sundowner.

On Day 5, you can choose to stay in and enjoy the sounds of birds, ever-changing views, and read a book or embark on another adventure 30-minutes drive away to Lake Mutanda.

If you chose the Lake Mutanda adventure, you'll take a boat canoe ride in a traditional dugout canoe across Mutanda's calm waters island hopping. There are more than 50 islands on this small lake, this part will introduce you to local cultures and people. If you chose to stay back at the lodge, you could take a walk through Buniga Forest; a pocket forest left for the Batwa Pygmys that left the large Bwindi jungles for the mountain gorillas. The local tribe will showcase their dying cultures in the forest, ancient medical skills and entertain you with their native folklore and music.

Another great activity at the lodge will be the evening campfire dance and music with local native kids. Join in the fun if you can.

• Accommodation: Nkuringo Bwindi Gorilla Lodge (Private Cottage)
• Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Soft Drinks

After an early breakfast, you'll start your Kashasha River Trail (6-7 hours) or Ivy River Trail (4-5 hours) jungle hike across the misty impenetrable Bwindi.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is a vast, unique natural reserve with troops of monkeys, duikers, bush pigs, and some of Bwindi's world-renowned bird species roaming under the forest's canopy. On some occasions, hikers may meet the chimps or gorillas on the trail.

Once part of a much larger forest that included the Virunga Volcanoes in neighboring Rwanda, the park is now an ecological island with immense conservation importance within a sea of villages and farmland.

This part of the great apes experience in Uganda is not simply an A to B activity. Your expert walking safari guide will share his knowledge of the forest with you passing through unforgettable views in the jungle. The trail is also a vital footpath for local people, particularly on market days, traveling from Nkuringo and Nteko to Buhoma, on the park's northern boundary.

There is no road through Bwindi, so vehicles driving between the two locations have an incredible 170 km bone-jarring journey taking 6 to 8 hours.

Upon arrival at the park headquarters in Buhoma, your classic Uganda safari driver will be there waiting for you to embark on your next three-hour journey to the savannah Queen Elizabeth National Park.

• Accommodation: Kasenyi Safari Camp
• Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch (lunch box), Dinner & Drinking Water

Wake early for a morning game drive in Kasenyi tracks. Kasenyi Safari Camp is located at the starting point of the game tracks, so you'll be staying with the animals at the camp.

On the early game drive, elephants and buffalo are very common, and lions are surprisingly easy to spot near the antelope breeding grounds. You'll see many interesting antelope species such as Uganda kob, topi, and bushbuck. Back at the lodge for late breakfast and lunch, then transfer to Kazinga Channel for a boat safari.

You'll join other tourists on a boat launch, or we can prepare a private boat safari for you. Many animals come to the channel to quench their thirst, so you'll be the closest to wild animals any traveler can be. Hippo and crocodile are common in the Kazinga channel. Giraffe and zebra are absent in Queen Elizabeth National Park.


• Accommodation: Kasenyi Safari Camp (Safari Tent)
• Meal Plan: Full Board

You can opt-in for another morning game drive to exhaust your wild curiosity. Otherwise, your great apes experience in Uganda driver will, at your leisure time, transfer you 4-hours to Kibale National Park via Kasese and Fort Portal Town.

Check-in at the lodge and enjoy the park's vastness. Kibale's diversity of primates is one of the highest in Africa, with 13 species identified. Black-and-white colobus, red-tailed monkey, and blue monkey are all regularly spotted and may visit your lodge in the evening hours. Several nocturnal species are present as well, including potto and the eastern needle-clawed bushbaby. These you may meet on your next day's excursion in the rainforest jungle.

The drive from Queen Elizabeth to Kibale takes about 3-4 hours (180 km).

• Accommodation: Primate Lodge (Luxury Cottage)
• Meal Plan: Full Board

Early morning after your breakfast, you'll take a 5-minute walk to the trailhead at Kanyanchu visitors' center, where you'll be briefed about the chimpanzee tracking activity.

You'll head out with rangers, an expert tracker guide, and several other tourists to find the chimpanzee troop. The troop is usually in the center's vicinity, which may take from 10 mins - 1 hour to find them. Once you find the chimp troop, you'll stay with them guided by the expert, watching their social dynamics for close to one hour.

If you prefer to spend more time with the chimps, opt for the chimpanzee habituation experience, which allows you to stay with the primates for the whole day along with researchers, doctors, and rangers.

Let's say you don't take the habituation experience; then you'll return to the lodge for lunch and head out after for an afternoon nature walk in the nearby Bigodi wetland.

The wetland is home to the uncommon I’Hoest’s monkey and East Africa’s biggest population of the endangered red colobus monkey that overflow from the national park. The black & white colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey, olive baboon, grey-cheeked mangabey, bush baby, and potto are among the other primates you'll see on the walk.

The Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary, a great example of a community-based approach to natural resources management, is managed by the residents who benefit from tourism around the Kibale area.

The sanctuary is a paradise for bird watchers - skilled birders can spot up to 50 new species on a bird list. Today 138 species of birds have been recognized within the sanctuary, among which the Great Blue Turaco.

• Accommodation: Primate Lodge (Luxury Cottage)
• Meal Plan: Full Board

After your late breakfast, you'll leave the primate capital as you live your last hours of the incredible great apes experience in Uganda and head to Entebbe via the lab to take your COVID-19 test.

Check into your accommodation as you wait for COVID-19 results and prepare for your flight home the next day or that evening.

• Accommodation: Papyrus Guest House.
• Meal Plan: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It's the day you take your flight back home.
Note: you require a negative COVID-19 test certificate you be allowed to check-in at the airport in Entebbe.