Day 1: Game drive in Murchison Falls National Park
You will have an early breakfast and drive to Murchison Falls National Park via the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary where you will have the opportunity to trek the Rhinos. The sanctuary houses Uganda’s Rhino reintroduction project. There are 9 white rhinos and tracking is done on foot for 1 and a half hours.
You will continue the Uganda Experiential Safari to Masindi Town for lunch and later drive to Murchison Falls National Park. The entire journey takes 6-7 hours. You will have dinner and overnight at the lodge of your booking.
Midrange Accommodation: Pakuba Lodge/Murchison River Lodge
Day 2: Game drive in Murchison Falls National Park
You will wake up very early and set off at 6.30 am for a sunrise game drive in the Nyamsika plateau to see the Cape buffaloes, Rothschild’s giraffes, Uganda kob, hartebeest, and waterbucks. You may also spot oribi, bushbuck, Bohor reedbuck, shy sitatunga, bush duiker, warthog, and bush pig plus large carnivores including lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas. Chimpanzees and olive baboons head the list of six species of primates found in the park with crocodiles and hippos along the banks of the Nile River.
Some of the more common birds that can be seen include goliath heron, Egyptian geese, pelican, bee-eaters, kingfishers, hornbill, cormorant, saddle-bill stork, and the rare shoebill stork. You will return to the lodge for lunch and some relaxation and set off for a boat launch on the placid Victoria Nile, upstream, to the base of the falls.
En-route you will see hippos, crocodiles, waterbuck, and a wide variety of birds like the rare shoebill stork sunbathing on the river banks. The boat stops just tens of meters from the “Devil’s Cauldron” for pictures to be taken of the photogenic and majestic Murchison Falls.
Midrange Accommodation: Same Lodge
Day 3: Travel to Kibale National Park, guided primates walk in Bigodi Swamp.
Start the 3rd day of the Uganda Experiential Safari with breakfast and travel to Kibale Forest National Park in western Uganda. You will be driven through a beautiful countryside of rolling hills and plains dotted with homesteads, gardens, and plantations of Bananas and tea. This is a 5-6 hour journey with lunch en route and you will get to the Park in the early afternoon hours.
You will check-in at the lodge of your booking for a short rest after which you will visit a nearby forest swamp to see primates like black and white colobus monkeys, L’Hoest monkeys, grey-cheeked mangabey, red-tailed monkeys, bushbabies, pottos, and other forest animals.
Expect to see a variety of birds like the yellow-spotted nicator, rumped tinker bird, little greenbul, green breasted pitta, the crowned eagle, black bee-eater, and the rare great blue turaco. At the eastern edge of Kibale forest is Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary which is maintained by the local community.
Midrange Accommodation: Papaya Lake Lodge/ Primate Lodge/Crater Safari Lodge
Day 4: Chimpanzee habituation experience in Kibale Forest
Today you will accompany researchers on a chimpanzee habituation exercise. You will get to the forest early enough to watch the chimps as they leave their overnight nests between 6:00 – 6:30 am and follow them throughout the day as they hunt for food, feed, copulate, breastfeed, rest, patrol, and play until it is time to build new nests around 7 pm.
Unlike a normal chimpanzee trek, this experience offers something far more immersive, complex, and powerful.
The unrushed nature of the habituation trek allows for a far more relaxed study of the exciting moves of the chimpanzees; enables you to gain an insight into their behavior and to appreciate the challenges of the researchers in getting these elusive apes to get used to going on with their daily activities in the presence of humans without changing their natural behaviors.
You will also gain an understanding of the forest, the plant life, and the other species found there. The exercise ends as the chimpanzees climb into their newly built nests for the evening.
This is an experience never to leave you the same!
Midrange Accommodation: Same Lodge
Day 5: Travel to Queen Elizabeth National Park & Viewing the Rwenzoris and Crater lakes
After breakfast, the Uganda Experiential Safari guide will transfer you to Queen Elizabeth National Park with stopovers for sightseeing and lunch. One of the remarkable stopovers will be to see the Crater lakes region and to visit the Amabeere Ga Nyina Mwiiru caves. These are caves of wonder with milk-like substance oozing out of the rocks and cultural legends attached to them.
You will learn about their cultural significance and also get the scientific explanation of their existence. You will drive to Fort Portal town where you will have lunch and later continue to Queen Elizabeth National Park. Dinner and overnight will be at the lodge of your booking.
Midrange Accommodation: Ihamba Lodge/Twin Lakes Lodge/Park View.
Day 6: Lion tracking experience in the Kasenyi plains and Boat Launch on Kazinga Channel.
We set out early in the morning for an Uganda Experiential Safari game drive in the northern part of the park called Kasenyi in search of lions. This is the best area for viewing the cats in action owing to the vast population of Uganda kobs in this part of the park. The pride (family) of lions and the family of mongooses to be tracked each have a member with a radio collar attached to it that enables the researchers to know where to find the family. The researchers will explain the fascinating habits, behaviors, instinct attributes, and security consciousness of these cats and the various tricks used in tracking them. You will learn about how the lions leave trails of bentgrass as they move, how they scent mark their territories, and why they spray sticky urine in particular areas.
You will learn special features about the banded Mongooses particularly their gigantic appetites and their complex social and communication systems which are fascinating. The tracking sessions last 1-3 hours and as a bonus expect also to see teeming herds of impala-like, as well as topi, elephants, giant forest hogs, and Cape buffalos.
You will return to the lodge for lunch and later go for a boat launch along the Kazinga channel whose shores harbor a profusion of water animals and birds including pink backed pelicans, pied and malachite kingfishers, saddle-billed stork, and many others. You will return to your lodge for dinner and overnight.
Midrange Accommodation: Same Lodge
Day 7: Tracking Lions in the Ishasha sector and Transfer to Bwindi.
You will have breakfast and drive to the southern sector of Queen Elizabeth National Park known as Ishasha for another Uganda Experiential Safari game drive in which you will see herds of kobs, elephants, topi, giant forest hog, Cape buffalo, etc. You will visit the Kob Mating Ground – a defined area specifically used by these stunning antelopes for challenging other males, enticing females, and mating. Ishasha Sector is famous for its tree-climbing lions which you will see resting on the branches of Fig trees as they scan for kobs, their favourite prey, in the neighbouring mating grounds. You will later set off and drive south to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park arriving in the late afternoon hours.
Time allowing you will visit a community of former forest people, the Batwa, who used to live in this forest before it was gazetted as a national park. You will learn about their former life as gatherers, hunters, and warriors and about their survival skills in challenging forest life.
Dinner and overnight will be at the lodge of your booking.
Midrange Accommodation: Lake Mutanda Resort/Gorilla Safari Lodge/Nkuringo Gorilla Lodge/ Rushaga Gorilla Camp
Day 8: Gorilla habituation experience in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
You will wake up early in the morning and head to the park headquarters to join other visitors for a briefing about the dos and don’ts while with Mountain gorillas on a habituation exercise. After the briefing, you will start your trek into the forest guided by researchers and guides to find a family of Gorillas under habituation.
Unlike a normal Gorilla trek, this Uganda Experiential Safari experience offers something far more intensive and educative as you will spend about 4 hours watching the moves of the Gorillas to see how they respond to the simulation by the researchers to make them get used to the presence of people around them. This exercise presents you with the opportunity to gain insights into their lifestyle, mannerism, and survival instincts and to film and capture perfect photo shots.
The exercise is incredibly stupefying!
You will return to your lodge for dinner and overnight.
Midrange Accommodation: Same Lodge.
Day 9: Golden monkey habituation exercise in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park.
You will wake up early and transfer to Mgahinga Gorilla National Park to participate in a habituation experience of the Golden Monkeys. You will get to the forest early enough to catch up with the Golden Monkey as they come out of their sleeping habitats between 6:00 – 6:30 am. You will watch them as they stretch to exercise their bodies, make noises to communicate, care for the young, go food hunting, patrol and play until late in the afternoon when they vanish to their hiding places to sleep.
You will watch as the researchers carry out simulation activities to make the Golden monkeys get used to the presence of human being and be educated by the researchers about their feeding habits, the kind of noises they make to communicate the invasion of their space by strangers, what they do when they sense danger, what they eat, how the mothers care for the young, and how the members of the family keep together. You will also gain an understanding of the forest, the plant life, and the other species found there.
This is an experience never to leave you the same!
Midrange Accommodation: Same Lodge.
Day 10: Return to Kampala & Departure
You will have a relaxed breakfast and set off on a return journey to Kampala. You will have a stopover at the Equator where you will have an opportunity to stand in two hemispheres at the same time and take some photos. You will arrive in Kampala in the late afternoon and either be transferred to the airport for your departure flight or to the hotel of your booking for dinner and overnight.