8-Day Uganda (Entebbe Start): Primates, Plains and Bunyonyi Bliss

Welcome to Uganda, the Pearl of Africa. Your driver-guide meets you in the arrivals hall at Entebbe International Airport and takes you the short distance to your hotel in Entebbe, a calm garden town on a peninsula on the northern shore of Lake Victoria.

Depending on your arrival time, the rest of the day is yours to settle in. If you land early, your guide can take you to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens, laid out in 1898 along the lakeshore, or to the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre for a first look at the country's animals.

In the evening your guide briefs you on the journey ahead before dinner and a restful first night beside the lake.

After an early breakfast you leave Entebbe and drive west through Kampala, Mubende and the rolling farmland of central Uganda to Fort Portal, the royal town of the Tooro Kingdom, a journey of about 6–7 hours with a lunch stop on the way.

The last stretch winds between tea estates and crater lakes, with the Rwenzori Mountains on the skyline on clear days, before you reach your lodge on the edge of Kibale Forest in the late afternoon.

An early start takes you to Kanyanchu for your chimpanzee trek. Led by a ranger-guide, you follow the calls of a habituated community through towering rainforest; Kibale holds about 1,500 chimpanzees, and you spend an hour watching them once they are found. Other primates are everywhere too, from red colobus to grey-cheeked mangabeys.

After lunch you drive south about 2–3 hours, descending the escarpment into the Albertine Rift and Queen Elizabeth National Park. On arrival you may have time for a short sunset drive before dinner at your lodge.

At sunrise you head out onto the Kasenyi plains, where lions stalk the large herds of Uganda kob, and elephants, buffaloes and warthogs roam the grasslands beneath the distant Rwenzoris. Your guide also visits the area's crater landscapes, scattered with volcanic cones and lakes.

After lunch you cruise for two hours along the Kazinga Channel between Lake Edward and Lake George. Hippos crowd the water, crocodiles bask on the banks, elephants and buffaloes come to drink, and the birdlife ranges from pelicans and fish eagles to kingfishers by the dozen.

After breakfast you drive south through the park to the remote Ishasha sector, famous for its tree-climbing lions. The lions here often rest in the spreading branches of fig and acacia trees during the heat of the day, and your guide will search the favourite trees while you also watch for topi, buffaloes, elephants and Uganda kob.

After a picnic lunch you continue south on winding roads into the hills, a drive of about 2–3 hours, until the dark, mist-wrapped ridges of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest rise ahead. You check in to your lodge near the Buhoma gate, where the forest begins right at the edge of the garden.

This is the day you have been waiting for. After an early breakfast you gather at the park headquarters in Buhoma for a briefing from the rangers, who assign you to one of the habituated gorilla families. Bwindi protects almost half of the world's remaining mountain gorillas, and the trek may take anything from two to six hours through steep, tangled forest. Porters can be hired at the trailhead to carry your bag and lend a hand on slippery slopes.

When the trackers locate the family you spend one hour in their company, watching the silverback, mothers cradling infants and youngsters tumbling through the vines. It is a deeply moving encounter and one of the great wildlife experiences on Earth.

Return to your lodge to rest. Later, if you have the energy, you can take a gentle walk through Buhoma village to meet the community living alongside the forest.

After a leisurely breakfast you leave the forest and drive about 4–5 hours through the terraced hills of Kigezi, sometimes called the Switzerland of Africa, via Kabale to Lake Bunyonyi. Its name means 'place of many little birds', and at 1,962 metres the air is fresh and cool.

In the afternoon you take to the water in a canoe or motorboat to explore some of the lake's 29 islands. Your guide shares the story of Akampene, or Punishment Island, where under old Bakiga custom unmarried girls who became pregnant were abandoned, and you stop at Bushara or Sharp's Island for a walk and the views. The evening is yours to relax beside the lake.

Enjoy a final misty morning on the lake before setting off on the long drive back to Entebbe, about 8–9 hours via Mbarara and Masaka, with a lunch stop and photographs at the Equator at Kayabwe. You arrive at Entebbe International Airport in the evening for your departure flight.

If you prefer a shorter day, a scheduled domestic flight from Kisoro or Kihihi to Entebbe can be arranged at extra cost, or we can add a night in Entebbe before your international flight.