Gorilla Trekking in Mgahinga National Park – Tour Guide

With so many Safari activities that are carried at Mgahinga gorilla national park, Gorilla trekking stands out to be most interesting and loved activity by the tourists in general. About 75% of the tourists that come in to this national  park are more interested in watching and touring Mountain Gorillas than other activities like game drive, launch cruise etc due to the point that mountain Gorillas have features of a human being in behavior and character. It is estimated that Uganda alone has total population of about 400 primates which for this case Mgahinga has a few of them compared to Bwindi impenetrable national park which has over 85% of the these primates.

Mgahinga Gorilla national park has one type of gorilla group that habitats called the Nyakagezi gorilla group although sometimes they tend to move or migrate to the nearby countries of Rwanda and Democratic republic of Congo due to the fact that, the national park is just located near the boarders of both DRC and Rwanda. Due to the fact that both Mgahinga Gorilla national park and Bwindi impenetrable national park are near to each other, tourists are able to visit both national parks at the same time. Furthermore, a one day trek in the park with a well explained guide taking you though the behaviors of these primates is life time experience. The atmosphere in the forests of Mgahinga calls for the Gorilla tracking as the main safari activity compared to other activities.

Gorilla trekking as an activity starts from Ntebeko entrance in the morning hours at 8:00am taking around 2-4 hours. While during the activity, the visitor is expected to at least spend one hour with them closely studying their behavior and characteristics after all when the hour ends, the Gorillas start to behalf differently and that is why, one hour is given. Some of the requirements that are needed to do this activity include packed food and a liter of water is also needed. the other things are bringing rain coats, proper foot wear shoes that are above the ankle plus also a camera to take some photos of these amazing primates. Maximum of eight people are needed in a group to trek these unique primates.

Before one treks these amazing Gorillas, one is required to have a Gorilla permit identifying the type of Gorilla group to be trekked which costs about 650 dollars per day depending on the best season for Gorilla tracking. Furthermore, the best period to do this activity is in the dry season of the months of June to October and then from mid December to the end of February as the roads leading to the national park are not as muddy making the movements of both cars and the tourists much easier to use either within or outside the national park compared to the wet seasons of the months of March, April, May, having muddy roads making the movements of tourists much different to use. The permits during the dry season tend to be much expensive at around 650 dollars than in the wet seasons were the permits go as low as 350 dollars due to low number of tourists visiting the Mountain gorillas.

Getting there is the main thing as one can use either road transport or Air transport given the cheapest fees charged according to one’s ability to pay. For one to use road transport to get towards to the park from Kampala, one needs a car which takes him or her 8 hours a distance of about 350 kilometers should be covered compared to air transport where one uses a charter from Entebbe to Kisoro air strip taking only one hour reaching there.

There are number of lodges one can stay in when going for a gorilla tracking as these lodges are either located within or outside the park and these include: from Ntebeko, there is Volcanoes mount Gahinga Safari lodge and Amajambere lavacu camp. In Kisoro, there is Kisoro travelers Rest hotels and River Muda Hotel. In Lake Mutanda, there is Lake Mutanda chameleon hill lodge.