Main Info
Ape’s Unity is a journey to Uganda‘s rare mountain gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, the playful chimpanzees and colobus monkeys of Kibale forest and all the stunning wildlife there is to find in Queen Elizabeth National Park! Nine days of traveling will give us enough time to explore the beauty of the Pearl of Africa. The time we spend, however, will also enable us to be and interact with the local communities. Together, we will explore the cultures of central and western Uganda and the people who live where we travel!
Ape’s Unity is a one-of-its-kind excursion to Uganda‘s most precious regions. This tour is designed to help the local communities in many ways while still presenting you the stunning wildlife and landscape of south-western Uganda.
In harmony with our responsible travel policy, we pay much effort to use as many local goods as possible. Our uniforms are 100% Ugandan and we put emphasis on using East African suppliers for our guides and our tours, in general. We support different ongoing community projects in the Great Lakes region such as Nkuringo Cultural Centre and the Kora vocational education project. We also participate in actual community meetings in in the area and help setting new goals for the communities around the national parks.
We self-oblige to the fact, that all of our services have to be environmentally and socially reasonable. With your visit, we try to maximize the region’s development and its touristic potential while minimizing bad outside influences!
We are a small team of experienced and talented guides. We all come from or have spent a long time in Kisoro district, surrounded by Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, the Virunga volcano range, and the Great Lakes of East Africa. The stunning wildlife soon impressed all of us. Emma, for example, is our dedicated birding sepcialist. Raban, among with Niels is one of our founders. They find their passion in nature walks and love the cultural exchange activities and community interaction we can offer you.
Our Supposed Itinerary: 9 Days (8 Nights)
Day 1: First, we want to greet you, because we are going to spend the next nine days together! We will pick you up by directly at Entebbe International Airport and you will meet your Instinct Safaris guide for your journey. After packing everything in our safari vehicle and transferring to your hotel in Kampala, we can get to know the Ugandan capital a little. The live comedy show at Hotel La Bonita is loved by the locals. This year, the national theatre in Kampala‘s business district is organizing the East African jazz festival, which is definitely worth visiting.
Day 2: Early in the morning, after your introduction to the Pearl of Africa, we will drive to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. It is home to nearly half of the world‘s population of critically endangered mountain gorillas and the rain forest covers some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the country. On our way there, we will stop at the Equator for pictures and exciting experiments. In Mbarara, we will take our lunch. If you feel like it, we could try out some of the local dishes of this region. At our final destination for the day, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, we will fall into bed and spend the night neighbouring the dense rain forest.
Day 3: Your gorilla tracking experience. At 8 AM, we report to the park office for a briefing by a park guide. After that, you will go ahead and track the critically endangered mountain gorillas. You will be expected to be back from tracking in the afternoon. After the long day, there will be another overnight on the borders of the forest.
Day 4: Today, we will finally visit the local communities for a full day. You can choose from various guided community and nature walks in the area. Cultural performances include traditional dances and acting and are great to watch. Even hiking mountains and canoeing on lake Mutanda is possible on that day. The Bakiiga and Batwa are very welcoming and might offer us obushera, a traditional alcoholic drink made from millet flour and sorghum, which is known to give strength to those who feel exhausted.
Every day after classes, the teenagers of Rubuguri village meet on the football or volleyball pit near the trading center and maybe they will let us join for a match? The night will be spent in your hotel and we can share the experiences we made today!
Day 5: After a healthy breakfast consisting of only local ingredients from the local markets, we will drive to Queen Elizabeth National Park passing Ishasha sector. You will be surprised how the savannah with its meteorit craters and a hilly rain forest can be so close to one another. In QENP, we will see the rare tree-climbing lions. Afterwards, we continue to Mweya park headquarters. This is where we will stay for the night.
Day 6: On day 6, we will take you on a morning game drive. At this time, you are most likely to see the stunning wildlife of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Elephants, buffalos, water bucks, warthogs, and others can be seen during that time. If we get lucky, we can even meet the scarce leopards and lions. After lunch, we will take you on a boat cruise on Kazinga Channel to experience aquatic wildlife and water birds in the national park. You will learn a lot about the region and its wildlife from your guide. Following this excursion, we will return to our lodge and spend a last night in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Day 7: On the seventh day, we make our way to Kibale National Park. Located east of the Mountains of the Moon and the many tea farms around Fort Portal, Kibale National Park is just about two hours away. That gives us the chance to be free to relax or time to take part in numerous activities in that area. They include a primate walk and terrific guided nature walks through Bigodi swamp, which benefit the locals. There are community projects in Kibale that we love and would like to show to you. The community peanut butter project, for example, generates income for the women‘s group of Bigodi. We will spend the night in the home of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, in Kibale.
Day 8: Chimpanzee tracking is the main activity of the today. It will be a breathtaking experience for us to find ourselves in the middle of the chimps family in the forest. We will spend tonight at our lodge after briefing for our journey back to Kampala. We got to experience western Uganda and we got a glimpse of its wildlife and rich cultures.
Day 9: In the morning, we will have to say goodbye to Kibale, and soon, Uganda, the Pearl of Africa. On our way back to Entebbe via Mityana, we will be able to do some birding. We can still shop at one of the markets along the way depending on the communities’ market days. But we will have to be back in time for your flight back home or to connect you to your next adventure!
