Planning my Western Uganda Trip!

There were definitely sites I wanted to see while on my adventure here in Uganda. Among them was going westward to Bwindi to see some Mountain Gorillas, Queen Elizabeth National Park and to Ishasha to see some tree climbing lions! However, I had not really set anything in place and did not know where to start to get out there. Fortunately, Hameed informed me that one of UWEC's keepers worked for a tour company and could get me a REALLY good deal on organizing a trip. So I met up with him in the morning and we began to discuss an itinerary and budget for what I wanted to do. He was a really nice man and was happy to suggest some awesome things for me! 

The first thing we needed to do, before we could plan an itinerary though, was to go to Kampala to the Uganda Wildlife Authority to request permits to track the Mountain gorillas and chimpanzees. We made good time in the afternoon getting to Kampala. As we arrived at the UWA, I was very fortunate to get permits for the days I wanted; and to make this mini trip work, they had to be for specific days. If it were the high season, these permits may have been needed to be booked months in advance. UWA can only issue so many permits per group of gorillas/chimps in a month. A habituated group can only be visited for maximum 1 hour in a day. This is mainly to minimize the risk of human disease transmission and maintain less stress for the animals. Very understandable. After permit acquisition, we then headed to a auto body centre to pick up the 4x4 Land Cruiser that we would be using for the trip. During the rainy season, some of the roads can be very bad to drive on, and public transport or a car just will not cut it. Finally after a day of running around we headed back to UWEC. 

A brief of my 5 day Western Uganda journey:

Day 1 - 12 hour travel from Entebbe to Bwindi, with stopover at Equatorial Line. Spend 1 night at Buhoma Community Rest Camp

Day 2 - Mountain gorilla tracking in the morning, then visit Batwa and Bushiga communities in afternoon. Spend 1 more night at Buhoma

Day 3 - Travel from Bwindi to Queen Elizabeth National Park and on the way do a game drive in the Ishasha sector to see the tree climbing lions. Spend 1 night at Students Hostel in Mweya

Day 4 - Game drive in the morning in QENP, then QENP boat cruise in the afternoon. Spend 1 more night at Students Hostel.

Day 5 - Chimpanzee tracking in the morning, then head back to UWEC in Entebbe.