Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

About Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a 321 km² rainforest in south-west Uganda, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo border, and it is the main reason most people come to Uganda: it holds roughly half of the world's remaining mountain gorillas. The forest is more than 25,000 years old and climbs from 1,160 m to 2,607 m through steep, narrow valleys under a closed canopy. It was gazetted as a national park in 1991 and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. Gorilla treks run every day of the year. The drier months, June to August and December to February, are the easiest underfoot, and permits for those dates sell out first, so book well ahead. The long rains from March to May turn the trails into deep mud. The shorter rains of October and November are more mixed, with plenty of dry mornings, and the forest is at its greenest. There are two ways in. Flights from Entebbe take about 1 hour 10 minutes to Kihihi airstrip, for Buhoma in the north, or to Kisoro, for Rushaga and Nkuringo in the south. By road from Kampala it is a long day: around six hours on tarmac to Kabale, then several more on murram roads to the trailheads. For the southern sectors it is often quicker to start in Kigali, about three to five hours away by road including the border crossing. Allow two nights, so you wake up near your trailhead on trek day instead of facing a pre-dawn transfer. A third night gives room for a second trek, a forest walk or simply rest. We usually pair Bwindi with Queen Elizabeth National Park to the north for savannah game and boat trips, or with Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda when guests fly in through Kigali. The park is split into four trekking sectors: Buhoma, the park headquarters, in the north, Ruhija in the east, and Rushaga and Nkuringo in the south. Your permit is issued for one sector, so your lodge should follow the permit, not the other way round. Trek day starts with an 8am briefing at the sector office, where rangers assign up to eight visitors to each gorilla family. Trackers have already gone ahead to the spot where the family nested the night before. Reaching them can take anything from an hour to most of the day, depending on where the gorillas have moved, and porters can be hired at the trailhead to carry your bag and give a hand on the steep sections. Once you find the family you have one hour with them. The minimum age is 15. In Rushaga, the Gorilla Habituation Experience takes up to four visitors to spend up to four hours with a family that is still getting used to people, working alongside rangers and researchers. Buhoma has the widest choice of beds. Buhoma Lodge and Mahogany Springs Lodge are both close to the northern trailhead, and Buhoma Community Rest Camp is a simpler base in the same village. If your permit is for Rushaga, Nkuringo or Ruhija, we book a lodge within reach of that sector instead.