12 Days The Land Of Giants

On your arrival at Entebbe International Airport, you’ll be greeted at the airport by your driver guide who will assist you with your luggage and a transfer to Serena Hotel in Kampala.  Depending on your arrival time, go for a city tour and familiarize with the true Ugandan paradise with our local guide. You can pick and choose a few destinations that epitomize the modern urban Ugandan experience. Places to visit may include the Kasubi tombs, Namirembe cathedral, Bahai temple, Namugongo martyrs shrine, and reptile village. Overnight at Serena Kampala.

After breakfast, you’ll travel overland through the magnificent greenery of Madhvani tea plantations and Kakira sugar plantations. Stopover Mabira Forest to enjoy the cool breeze as you hike through forest. our guide will share the rich heritage of the Uganda people who lived in the forest and you’ll have opportunities of sighting or listening to different bird species, beautiful butterflies, primates, and tree species. Have your lunch in Jinja town and thereafter proceed to the source of the Nile where the Nile starts its 4000-mile journey to the Mediterranean Sea from Lake Victoria. You’ll be able to notice that the Nile flows out of Lake Victoria. From here, you’ll proceed to Wildwaters Lodge located on a unique private island mid-stream within the mighty River Nile. The ten stand-alone elevated timber-floor and super-spacious luxury suites nestled in the rainforest with amazing river views.

It is a day of pure thrills. Experience a true source of the river which is believed to have been discovered by John Hanning Speke on August 3rd, 1858. At the source, stands the mighty Lake Victoria which has been thought for a long time to be the source of the Nile. Waters from the large lake leave by the Victoria Nile to head north to join the Albert Nile in northern Uganda. When the water leaves the massive Lake Victoria, it does so in a spectacular fashion. You’ll spend the day on the River Nile, descending through grade III, IV, and V rapids, tumbling along with the cooling waters of Africa’s longest river. It is fun and no experience is needed.

After an early breakfast, our driver guide will pick you up from your hotel at 7:00 am, proceed with your journey to Murchison Falls National park. You’ll have a stopover at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary for Rhino tracking experience; here you’ll find both black and white rhinos. The sanctuary was set up in 2005 to breed and later introduce Rhinos to Uganda’s major game parks. After tracking, you will then head to Masindi district for lunch then to the Murchison Falls national park to check in at Chobe Safari Lodge.

Murchison Falls offers an excellent diversity of wildlife; you’ll be taken for a morning game drive where you’ll spot several mammals including warthogs, antelope, lions, hyenas, giraffes and primates among others. You’ll then head back to your lodge for a sumptuous lunch, freshen up and prepare for a boat cruise. The voyage takes approximately 3 hours on the water for magnificent safari viewing to and from the falls, the boats offers the best opportunity to witness up-close the teeming hippos and crocodile populations on the river as well as a plethora of animals and birdlife on the river banks.

Wake early on this day and go for a 5:00 am hot air balloon. You’ll be given a briefing on the safety precautions, rules and regulations as you get ready to hop on the air balloon. Once aboard, the pilot will launch for set off and the blowing wind will help the balloon rise to several feet off the ground and soar above the treetops. The scenery up there is spectacular and the feeling of the fresh air blow in face and air is very sensational. You’ll be rewarded with an aerial view of the Savannah below teaming with all kinds of wildlife, including large numbers of animals that crowd the Banks of the great Nile. The hot air balloon tour normally takes about 1 hour and you’ll finish off with a special bush breakfast and a bottle of Champagne. You’ll drive back to the lodge to refresh and later transferred  to Kibale National Park for an overnight at Kyaninga Lodge.

The most famous inhabitants of Kibale National Park, undoubtedly, are the chimpanzees, with over 1,500 protected within its borders. After breakfast at your lodge, you’ll be transferred to Kanyanchu Tourist Center for a briefing on Chimpanzee tracking. With guides, set out into Uganda’s Kibale forest ,you’ll spend a number of hours tracking these impressive creatures and you’ll be allowed to spend one hour with our mesmerizing relatives once you find them , as you observe them swing from one tree to another, feed, play about or progress speedily on the ground right in front of you. Chimpanzee tracking actually is a very fascinating experience. After trekking, you’ll head for sumptuous lunch. And later proceed with a visit to the scenic crater lakes region plus the terraced tea plantations around the hills of fort portal. This Crater Lake sits on the on Lake Nyinambuga where tourists can take a walk as they enjoy the cool breezes of this lake. After lunch go for a walk in the visit Bigodi Wetland sanctuary were you will view more primates like the blue monkeys, baboons, otters, Bush bucks, mongoose, bush pigs and many more.

For the next few days, you’ll have almost 2,000km2 of the pristine national park at your fingertips and barely anyone to interrupt your view. The park has a variety of wildlife species such as elephants, buffaloes, waterbucks, lions, and many others. After breakfast, you’ll travel to Queen Elizabeth National Park and check in at Mweya Safari Lodge.  After lunch, you’ll head for a cruise down Kazinga Channel alongside one of Africa’s densest concentrations of hippos. The hippos are not only the iconic thing found along this water but the channel is the park’s lifeblood, the permanent source of goodness that all animals must stay close too. You’ll see large herds of Ugandan kob taking a drink, Nile crocodiles sunbathe on the banks while elephants disappear beneath the water, poking their trunks up like snorkels.

Wake up early, drive across the savanna and watch how it changes color with the rising sun. The morning game drive safaris in Queen Elizabeth National Park are full of praises, elephants come out of silhouette, antelopes gather in staggering numbers, and huge lumbering hippos charge towards the water. You’ll have more interesting sightings such as leopards, warthogs, and buffaloes. After lunch you will drive to Bwindi National Park passing through the Ishasha sector which is a home to tree climbing lions. Check in at Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge for an overnight stay.

Today, trek through the park’s dense vegetation; Vehicles have never penetrated this forest, and the going can be challenging with steep ascents and tangled trails. Trekking through dense forest with steep slopes means that participants do need to be physically fit however gorilla trekking groups are assigned on fitness levels, so you can request a shorter or longer hike dependent on your preferences. In a group of 8, you’ll set off in the jungle and your guides use their experience, knowledge of the gorillas’ habits and information from the previous day to locate them. Once you have found the gorillas, you will be allowed to spend an hour with them. Keep your camera in silence and observe a 10 meters’ distance from the gorillas and keep your mask on at all times. It’s worth the slight physical discomforts, for a reward of a face-to-face encounter with one of the most endangered animals on the planet. Observe their subtle social interactions and remarkable behaviours closely resembling our own. After the lifetime experience, you’ll be driven back to the Lodge for relaxation.

The endangered golden monkey is endemic to the Albertine Rift, and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park offers a rare chance to track these striking creatures, high in the dense bamboo forests on the Gahinga trail. After an Early, breakfast, your driver-guide will pick you up and drive you to the park headquarters. After a safety briefing, you’ll be driven to the start of the trail, where you’ll embark on a journey to trek the golden monkeys. Your guide will lead you along generally clear paths to the edge of the forest, at which time you’ll then be moving through denser vegetation. Each day tracking golden monkeys is different; the weather and monkey troop movements decide how the day will go, so it can sometimes take a while for the trackers to locate them.

After a leisurely breakfast, relax at the lodge as you wait for your scenic flight to Entebbe  International Airport to connect with your international flight back home.