Day 1
Pick up at your Kampala Hotel from the Entebbe International Airport (EBB). Take the morning drive to the Lake Mburo National Park with game viewing en-route. You'll arrive at the Rwakobo Rock Lodge for lunch. In the afternoon, enjoy a boat ride on Lake Mburo with opportunities to enjoy the rich bird life, as well as schools of hippos. You may take a nature walk on lodge grounds. Dinner and overnight at the Rwakobo Rock Lodge.
Day 2
Arise early with coffee or tea and cookies for a guided nature walk. Lake Mburo is the only national park in Uganda where a safari on foot is allowed. With your guide’s advice get as ‘safely’ close as possible to wildlife like giraffes, antelopes, buffaloes from a distance, elephants, and many more. Learn about medicinal and other plants, earn about bird calls, learn how to identify some species by their footprints and dung, observe the small inhabitants; ants, beetles, butterflies, and others and exchange notes with your naturalist or guide.
Take a late breakfast at the lodge and drive to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Lunch at a local restaurant en-route. Proceed to the Silverback Lodge. Dinner and overnight at the Silverback Lodge.
Day 3
Arise early and prepare for the adventure of a lifetime: a coming face to face with the rare but critically endangered mountain gorillas - only about 800 remain in the world. After breakfast, you will be transferred to the national park offices where you will be allocated a gorilla family, a gorilla tracking guide, and tracking group to join. Following a briefing by your guide about the gorillas, the allocated gorilla family, what to expect, how to behave with the gorillas, etc., you will be driven to the trail-head for the start of your amazing adventure.
The time taken / distance traveled in search of the mountain gorillas can be pretty unpredictable. It could be anything from two to eight hours hiking up and down the valleys and ridges of Bwindi’s beautiful eco-system, in often steep and muddy conditions, and sometimes with rain overhead. The pleasure and thrill of coming face to face with the gentle giants of Bwindi in their natural habitat and spending the allowed one hour with them is one of the most unique and genuinely breathtaking experiences you will ever have.
Afterwards, you will trek back to base to rejoin your driver or guide and transfer back to the lodge for a well deserved shower and lunch. Dinner and overnight at the Silverback Lodge.
Day 4
Following breakfast, depart Bwindi with packed lunches and drive to Queen Elizabeth National Park via her southern Ishasha area that is famous for the black maned tree climbing lions, a rare phenomenon practiced by some lions in only very few of their habitat. You may also expect to see herds of buffalo, elephants, and a multiplicity of other plains game species. Enjoy an all day northwards game viewing drive culminating at Mweya Safari Lodge, where you arrive with time to relax in late afternoon. Dinner and overnight at the Mweya Safari Lodge.
Day 5
Arise at dawn with coffee/tea and cookies and embark on an early morning game drive first heading the Kasenyi plains, the mating ground of the Uganda Kobs in search of lions, elephants, buffaloes, and other wild animals in their natural habitat then proceed to the jetty on Kazinga Channel, a natural channel joining Lake Edward and Lake George for a launch cruise.
At the very center of the divide between the East African savannah and the West African jungle, the channel is a melting pot of eco-systems and species with a wide variety of bird species, multitudes of hippos cooling off on the shores, wallowing buffaloes, elephants, buffaloes; this cruise will definitely be one of the highlights of your safari. Afterwards, check out and drive back to Kampala proceeding to Entebbe International Airport (EBB) for your evening departure flight.
