4 Day Gorilla Trekking & Lake Bunyonyi

Your guide will come to pick you at the hotel in Kampala city and drive to Ruhija sector. Make stopover along the way at the equator monument and in Mbarara city if you must have lunch. Continue via Kabale town to Ruhija arrive and check in for dinner and overnight stay.

Ruhija is one of the four gorilla trekking sectors of Bwindi impenetrable national park. There are 4 gorilla families including Oruzogo and Bitukura which tend to forage on the park edges. As such, there are high chances for short and less strenuous gorilla treks even though Ruhija lies at the highest altitude of up to 2,500 meters.

Drive to the park center after breakfast to attend briefing on the gorilla rules at 7:30am.  It is an interactive session that you can ask to be allocated to a gorilla family depending on your concerns. You’re encouraged to hire a walking stick or a porter. This is particularly important for the less fit people. After making all necessary preparations, you will be accompanied by a team of Uganda Wildlife Authority armed rangers and trackers into the forest searching for the gorillas. Once they’re found, you’re allowed to spend one hour with the gorillas while maintaining a social distance of 7 meters. Thereafter, trek back to the starting point to receive your tracking certificate before lunch at the lodge.

After lunch, you will transfer to Lake Bunyonyi for dinner and overnight stay at a lodge close to the water. Lake Bunyonyi has 19 islands which offers stunning scenery and a relaxing atmosphere, a great way to recharge after gorilla tracking.

After breakfast, spend the morning to afternoon time exploring the islands of Lake Bunyonyi. Take a boat ride or canoe on the lake and visit the historical punishment island, where young girls who would get pregnant before marriage were dumped and left to starve and die. The practice was condemned with the arrival of missionaries in the region the 1920s. However, it was abandoned after many girls had perished. In fact, there are still remains of people on the neighboring island. You will get off the boat and walk to the caves to see things for you. Return to the lodge for lunch, dinner and overnight.

Lake Bunyonyi is bilharzias free and there are no hippos or crocodiles. You can swim if you know how to. However, maximum caution must be exercised given the depth of the lake.

Depart from Lake Bunyonyi after breakfast and transfer back to Kampala city, hoping to arrive in the evening. You will be driven to the final point either at the airport for your flight or at your place of stay.<.p>