Day 1: Arrival & Transfer to the Hotel
Following your arrival at Entebbe Airport, our company representative, together with your driver/guide, will be waiting to welcome you to Uganda and transfer you to the hotel in Entebbe for an overnight stay at Best Western Premier Garden Hotel.
Day 2: Pickup and transfer to Jinja
Have breakfast, and your driver/guide will pick you up and transfer you to Jinja, home to the source of the River Nile. Arrive in Jinja at a good time for lunch. After lunch, connect to visit the source of the Nile and later in the evening do a sunset boat cruise on Lake Victoria. Connect to your hotel, where you will unwind, have dinner, and stay overnight at 2 Friends Hotel Jinja.
Day 3: Transfer back to Kampala – City tour
Have breakfast and drive back to Kampala, reaching late morning. Have lunch at your hotel and connect for a city tour. Later, connect back to your hotel to rest. Dinner and overnight stay at Naguru Skyz Hotel
Day 4: Transfer to Lake Bunyonyi -Kabale
Enjoy your breakfast at your hotel, then meet your driver to embark on your long drive to Lake Bunyonyi in Kabale district, with a stopover at Kayabwe for the equator experiment and have lunch in Mbarara town. Proceed and arrive in Bunyonyi in the late afternoon. Check in, unwind, and enjoy dinner and an overnight stay at Arcadia Cottages Lake Bunyonyi.
Day 5: Visit the Islands & transfer to Bwindi
After your morning breakfast, take a boat trip to visit some of the fascinating islands on the lake, like Kyahungye Island, where you will find some wildlife including zebras, waterbucks, impalas, and kobs. Visit Akampene Island, the punishment island where the pregnant unmarried girls were dumped to die, and finally, the Bwama and Njuyeera Islands, where missionary Dr.Leonard Sharp founded a leper colony.
Return for lunch at the lodge, then connect for a 3-4 hours’ drive to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Arrive late afternoon. Dinner and overnight stay at Ichumbi Gorilla Lodge
Day 6: Gorilla Trekking Experience – Rushaga & Lake Mutanda visit
Have an early morning breakfast, head to the park headquarters for a briefing, and then join the researchers and ranger guides and begin the trek in search of the gentle creatures. This can take 2-8 hours, depending on the movement of the gorillas. After finding the gorillas in Bwindi, you will be allowed up to 1 hour with them and then return.
Your driver/guide will drive you to Lake Mutanda for a canoe ride and explore the lake with its islands. After driving to your lodge in Kisoro, dinner will be served, and spend the night at Traveler’s Rest Hotel.
Day 7: Batwa community tour – transfer to Masanze
Wake up, have breakfast, and connect for another adventure in Mgahinga National Park to visit the indigenous Batwa people. They have lived their lives to the present day by hunting and gathering in the forest; visiting them involves a dance demonstration and songs. Return for lunch, then cross to Rwanda via the Cyanika border, where you will spend the rest of the evening at your lodge. Dinner and overnight at Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge
Day 8: Hike to Dian Fossey
After breakfast, set off to Volcanoes National Park headquarters in Kinigi for a briefing about the hike. You will then connect to the trailhead, where you will walk for just 10 minutes to the park boundary to connect to Karisoke research camp, where Dian Fossey lived, was killed, and was buried. Dian was an American primatologist who dedicated her entire life to conserving the lives of the mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains until she was killed.
Hiking to Dian Fossey’s graveyard is a one- to one-and-a-half-hour hike with great views of forest fogs, forest elephants, and different species of birds and primates. On arriving at the camp, you will see a house where she was murdered and buried just next to her favorite gorilla (Digit), along with other mountain gorillas killed by poachers.
Later, descend back and meet your driver to return to Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge as above.
Day 9: Hike Mount Bisoke
After an early breakfast, drive to the park headquarters for a briefing about the activity as early as 7 am; you will then be allocated the ranger guides and you head for the hike. The hike will take you 3-4 hours to reach the top, where you will be ushered on to Crater Lake at the top of the volcano.
You will then descend back down the volcano, reaching down by around 4pm and transfer to your lodge for refreshment. Depending on the time, you may go for an optional cultural walk to Iby’wachu where you will learn more about the Banyarwanda tradition. Dinner and overnight stay at Da Vinci Gorilla Lodge as above.
Day 10: Transfer to Kigali and Departure.
In the morning, after an early breakfast, you will set off to Kigali, where you will do a city tour visiting the Kigali genocide memorial and other places advised by your guide, and later transfer to the airport to check in for your flight back home.
Experienced webmaster and copywriter with 16 years of experience in the East African tourism industry. Jerome possess excellent knowledge about gorilla trekking, wildlife safaris, chimpanzee tracking, and accommodations across major destinations in East Africa.
