How to Go Gorilla Trekking in Uganda on a budget: In Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, gorilla treks can be organized for a fraction of what it costs in neighboring Rwanda – making one of Africa’s greatest, and most expensive, wildlife experiences more accessible.
Spend one hour in presence of a mountain gorilla family is a fascinating experience, if we are to break down every penny spent on this extra-ordinary experience and a gorilla permit of $ 800.
Costing up to US$ 1,500 for an hour’s viewing in Rwanda, gorilla trekking is undoubtedly one of the world’s more costly wildlife experiences. Yet anyone who is scaled the slippery slopes of Volcanoes or squeezed and scraped through bamboo thickets to spend time with some of our closest cousins will tell you it’s money well spent.
Beside, one-hour encounter with the gorillas is half the price of what it would cost in neighboring Rwanda. And nearly 50% of the world’s population of mountain gorillas live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. That equates to around 500 individuals, according to the last official census in 2019, with 21 gorilla troops currently habituated for tourism – more than in any other area of Africa.
But a visit to the home of gorillas is a bout so much more than 60 minutes of ape activity. Our adventure will begin several days earlier, long before you even enter the forest. After landing in Entebbe, Uganda’s International Air Hub, just outside the capital of Kampala. It is a 8-9 hours’ drive to Bwindi, however domestic flights are available.
Enjoy scenic views of ever-changing landscapes and snapshots of city and rural life enrich the overland journey. Pass through traffic-clogged towns, emerald fields and a crush of hillsides that rise and fall like a roller coaster.
On the outskirts of Kampala market stalls overflow with glistening mangoes, enormous avocados and onions shiner than snooker balls. Moving through districts en route to the southwest of Uganda, lookout for calabash fruits drying in the sun beside field of cattle in Mburo, and engalabi, cow-skin drum, stacked outside the villages of Mpambire.
Eventually, tarmac roads melt into red earth, mountains rise and smoke coils from mud kilns. Tea, coffee, bananas and potatoes are all harvested on precipitous slopes where wild creatures – including gorillas – hide.
Arriving into one of Bwindi’s gorilla trekking sectors, it’s a short but heart-pumping uphill walk past the town’s main sprawl of wooden stalls to my mountainside base in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Run by Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) the accommodation is part of the NGO Research Base.
Often Gorillas wander into farmlands and you can meet them, at the entrance to the research base, farmers sift through sun-roasted coffee beans-part of a fair-trade initiative set by the CTPH. The NHO was founded by award-winning vet and conservationist Dr. Gladys Kalema Zikusoka, to safeguard the future of gorillas by improving living conditions and livelihoods for local communities.
Visitors can tour its laboratory, where samples regularly collected from gorillas are scrutinized from microbes, drop in for a coffee at its new Gorilla Conservation Café, or stay the night in comfortable and affordable en suite guest rooms. Costing a fraction of the price charged by luxury lodges, its another way to keep down the cost of a gorilla – trekking safari while learning about community conservation at the same time.
Get a taste of their excellent Gorilla Coffee –rich and velvety – the following morning, as you gaze at chilly moss-green mountains snuggled by scarves of woolly mist.
Into the woods
After an 8 am briefing at the park headquarters, you are assigned a gorilla troop to trek then hike into the forest. Although familiar with humans, gorillas perfect to stay in hard-to-reach, high rise hangouts. Trackers, out since dawn, have located them a two and a half walk away. The hike only serves to heighten anticipation and becomes and adventure in itself. Crossing fields where women in colorful Kitenge headscarves are harvesting crops with heavy scythes, we enter a tunnel of branches and roots.
Climbing at elevations between 1,000 and 2,000 metres, walking is tough at times. You will appreciate hiring a porter from local community at US$ 20 to carry your heavy backpack. Once inside the forest, uneven ground makes it hard to keep balance and you will find yourself taking his hand for help.
Damp from overnight rainfall, the ground is slippery and droplets cling to leaves. Occasionally you will hear a faint whistle and the flapping of bird wings floats down from the highest tree canopies. Along the way, fellow trekkers will be whispering excitedly about life-long dreams of seeing gorillas. Will they look at us? How should we act in their presence? Will we be charged by a silverback? But as the minutes pass and the terrain gets tougher, we fall into silence, conserving our breath and savoring the privilege of being alone in this deep, dense forest. Then another thought enters in my head: will we actually find them?
We you find the gorillas, you are instructed to keep a 10-metre distance, to protect the gorillas from human-borne diseases, it is time to meet the family. The gorillas are not shy at all, see the silverback guarding his family, females climb trees seeking leaves to munch on, and toddlers tumble from the undergrowth, rolling so close, one even points his podgy index digit into your camera. They eat, fart and even mate.