4 Days Bwindi Gorillas and Batwa Heritage, Fly-In from Entebbe

Day-by-day itinerary

1. Day1
   

   Fly from Entebbe to Kihihi and Drive to Buhoma

   Our team meets you at your Entebbe hotel or at the airport for the short transfer to the domestic terminal. The scheduled light-aircraft flight to Kihihi airstrip, in the south-west, takes about 90 minutes and flies over the islands of Lake Victoria, the green farmland of Masaka and the rolling hills of Ankole; the same trip by road takes nine to ten hours. At Kihihi our driver-guide meets you and drives about one hour to Buhoma, the northern sector of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, passing tea estates and the edge of the Queen Elizabeth plains. Bwindi covers 321 square kilometres of steep rainforest and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994; it holds close to half the world’s mountain gorillas. After lunch at your lodge, settle in and walk down to the park gate and the craft shops of Buhoma village. The forest wall rises right behind the lodges, and in the evening you can hear the calls of chimpanzees, turacos and tree hyraxes. Dinner and overnight at Buhoma Lodge, Mahogany Springs or Buhoma Haven Lodge.

   • Flight to Kihihi
   • Buhoma Lodge, Mahogany Springs or Buhoma Haven Lodge
   • Lunch, dinner
2. Day2
   

   Mountain Gorilla Trekking in Buhoma

   Breakfast is early, and at 7:30 am you report to the Buhoma park office for the briefing. Rangers assign you to a gorilla family; groups are capped at eight visitors per family each day, and the minimum age is 15. Then you set off into the forest with the rangers, trackers and, if you wish, a porter from the local community. The name Impenetrable is earned: the trails follow steep, slippery ridges through tangled vines, ferns and tall trees, and the walk can take from one to six hours depending on where the gorillas spent the night. When the trackers find them, you have one hour in their company, a few metres away, watching the silverback, mothers and young feed and rest. Afterwards return to the lodge for a late lunch and a long rest. The Batwa knew these same gorilla families for generations before the park was created, and tomorrow’s visit tells that side of the story. Dinner and overnight at your Buhoma lodge.

   • Gorilla trekking
   • Buhoma lodge
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
3. Day3
   

   A Half Day with the Batwa and the Munyaga Waterfall Walk

   This morning belongs to the Batwa. When Bwindi became a national park in 1991, the Batwa were moved out of the forest with no land of their own, and today the Batwa Development Program and community groups near Buhoma work to rebuild their health, schooling and livelihoods. On the half-day visit, which usually lasts three to four hours, Batwa hosts lead you through a stretch of forest on the edge of the park and show how they built grass huts, hunted with bows and nets, collected honey and used plants as medicine. You join in fire-making, hear the stories of their life in the forest, and end with songs and dances. A share of the fee goes straight to the Batwa families. After lunch, take a gentler walk through Buhoma village with a local guide, past tea gardens and a banana beer brewer, to the Munyaga waterfalls on the forest edge. Visit the Bwindi Community Hospital, started by a missionary doctor to serve the Batwa. Dinner and overnight at your Buhoma lodge.

   • Batwa visit and village walk
   • Buhoma lodge
   • Breakfast, lunch, dinner
4. Day4
   

   Drive to Kihihi and Fly Back to Entebbe

   Enjoy a slow breakfast on the lodge deck as the mist lifts off the forest. If your flight leaves later in the day, there is time for a short nature walk on the Waterfall Trail inside the park, where you may see red-tailed monkeys, L’Hoest’s monkeys and some of Bwindi’s 350 bird species, including the African green broadbill and several Albertine Rift endemics. Then we drive back to Kihihi airstrip, about one hour through the tea estates, for the scheduled flight to Entebbe, roughly 90 minutes in the air. On arrival in Entebbe, our team meets you and transfers you to your hotel or straight to the international terminal for your flight home. If you have an extra day, Entebbe’s botanical gardens, laid out in 1898, and the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre are both close to the airport, or you can take a boat out to Ngamba Island to see orphaned chimpanzees. Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, is right on the doorstep. End of the trip.

   • Flight to Entebbe
   • Breakfast