Luxury Safari and Gorilla Habituation

After a good night's sleep and breakfast, transfer to Entebbe Airport for your domestic flight to Kasese Airstrip. There you will be met by your guide who will transfer you to Elephant Plains Lodge in Queen Elizabeth National Park, a drive of about 20 minutes. In the afternoon, visit the memorable Katwe Salt lake as well as the Kasenyi fishing village.

Overnight: Elephant Plains Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

After breakfast at the lodge overlooking the plains of Queens, go out in search for lions. Your guide will teach the basic telemetry used to locate the lions, as well as discussing the history of the park itself, the human-animal conflict in communities around the park, veterinary issues within the park, and lion family dynamics.

In the afternoon, leave the vehicle behind to join a scenic boat cruise along the Kazinga Channel, a 33km long natural and pre-historic canal that joins Lakes Edward and Lake George. Formed by tectonic activity millions of years ago during the formation of the rift valleys, the canal, 2 to 3kms at its widest, is now the most dominant feature of Queen Elizabeth National Park. You are almost always guaranteed excellent wildlife sightings including large schools of hippopotamus, Nile crocodiles, wallowing buffaloes on its reedy banks, elephants, multitudes of birds including many endemics as well as numerous other plains game that come to drink at the water's edge.

Overnight: Elephant Plains Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Up early for the transfer back to Kasese Airstrip for the scheduled internal flight, departing at 07.00 to Kisoro. You will land at about 08:45 and meet your driver for the hour transfer to the Nkuringo sector of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Check into your lodge. A guided walk is available in the afternoon if you are feeling active.

Overnight: Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Today you will head out on the Buniga Forest Trail to visit a project run by the local Batwa community. The Batwa tribe was forced to leave their home in the forest in 1991 when it was declared a UNESCO Heritage site for gorillas only. Previously they had been living in the forest as nomadic hunter-gatherers for millennia. Moving out and suddenly living in communities with a completely different way of life has proven to be a huge challenge. The tour gives the Batwa a way to earn a living and they will show you the forest and how they used to live their lives without it. It's an activity well worth supporting.

Return to the lodge for sundowners as you prepare for the big day tomorrow.

Overnight: Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

The Big Day arrives! Wake up early for a nourishing breakfast (you will need the energy) and then a short transfer to the national park offices where you will be allocated a gorilla family and a gorilla tracking guide. After a pre-tracking briefing on the ecology and history of the gorillas, as well as appropriate safety precautions, you head out by road to the trail-head for the start of your adventure.

The trek begins. Expect to walk between 2 and 8 hours in steep and sometimes muddy conditions, with showers often appearing. The trek can be tough and requires a degree of (average) fitness. When contact is made with the gorillas, you will be able to spend up to one hour with them. Watch them feed, move, play and wrestle. When the hour is up, return through the forest to your vehicle and the lodge for a second night stay.

Overnight: Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Say goodbye to the forest and transfer 1.5 hours to Kisoro airstrip for the scheduled flight departing at 08:25, arriving into Entebbe at 11:25. Connect to your international flight home.

Meals: Breakfast