Meet the Cousins: A Chimpanzee Journey Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Entebbe (Kampala) and Chimpanzee Sanctuary
Most people arrive in Uganda early in the morning (often via Nairobi). Our schedule for today depends on your time of arrival and how tired you are after the journey. If you arrive on a morning flight then we collect you from the airport and take you to your boutique hotel in nearby Entebbe. We will leave you to rest and have lunch for a few hours. In the afternoon we board a boat for the hour-long speed boat ride across Lake Victoria, Africa’s biggest lake and a source of the Nile, to Ngamba Island, which is home to a group of chimpanzees rescued as babies from poachers and the illegal exotic pet trade. While these chimps can never now return to a life in the wild, this island sanctuary is the next best thing. During the visit you will learn about the life history of some of the chimps and the sanctuary itself and then get to see the chimps have dinner. Afterwards we return to the mainland and the hotel for our own dinner.
Day 2: Budongo Forest & Murchison Falls National Park
After an early breakfast we drive five hours northwest to the Budongo Forest on the edge of the impressive Murchison Falls National Park. We’ll have a quick lunch at the community-run forest café on arrival before heading out on foot deep into the forest in search of our first group of wild chimpanzees. The chimpanzees of Budongo forest are well habituated to humans and have long been studied by scientists. In recent years a number of remarkable scientific discoveries have been made concerning these chimps, including sick or injured chimps treating themselves with medicinal plants found in the forest. A more worrying observation is that the chimps here have started to eat bat guano which scientists worry might lead to disease outbreaks, such as new forms of Corona, that could jump to humans. Finding the chimps can take an hour or two and afterwards we get to spend one very special hour with the chimps (this is the standard amount of time the authorities allow visitors to spend with the chimps). At the end of the afternoon, we drive out of the forest area to our comfortable lodge on the banks of the Nile (this is about an hours drive but there’s plenty of wildlife to see along the way).
Day 3: Budongo Forest & Murchison Falls National Park
It’s an early start this morning as we drive back to the Budongo Forest for our second day with the chimps. While we only got to spend an hour with the chimps yesterday, today we get to do the habituation experience which gives us up to four hours with the chimpanzees and allows us a much more in-depth look at chimpanzee lifestyle. At the end of this unforgettable morning we will have lunch at the community-run café and then spend the afternoon exploring the savannah grasslands of Murchison Falls National Park. In the space of less than an hour you will go from rainforest and chimpanzees to observing elephant, buffalo and various antelope in the grasslands. If we are lucky, we may even get to see some of the parks elusive lions. There’s also the option of visiting the spectacular Murchison Falls, which is one of the most powerful waterfalls in Africa and has been described as the most spectacular thing to happen along the entire length of the Nile. In the evening we return to our safari lodge for dinner.
Day 4: Murchison Falls National Park & Bugoma Forest
This morning we gain a different perspective on Murchison Falls National Park by taking a boat ride along the Nile. Animals we are likely to see include hippos and elephants as well as a huge array of spectacular bird life. Afterwards, we do a slow safari drive out of Murchison Falls National Park and then head south for three hours to the little known Bugoma Forest and our beautiful eco-lodge. Bugoma forest offers one of the most interesting conservation stories in Uganda. Little visited by tourists, the forest is under enormous pressure from large agricultural businesses and illegal charcoal burning and is quickly becoming fragmented, which is leaving the chimp groups here in great danger. There’s only one lodge in the vicinity of the forest and the management here have set up an association – Friends of Bugoma Forest – who are fighting to save the forest and its chimps. It’s a hard battle they have taken on and, in their own words, “tourism might be the only thing that can save this forest and the chimpanzees”. On arrival we will visit the reforestation projects run by the association and lodge and learn about the uphill battle they face.
Day 5: Bugoma Forest
This morning we set out on another chimpanzee habituation experience. Although few tourists come to see the chimps here they are well habituated and during our four hours in the forest we are likely to be rewarded with thrilling up close encounters. Be warned though that the forest here can be quite dense and, in our experience, the walking here is harder than in any of the other Ugandan chimpanzee forests.
In the afternoon we can choose between visiting the local communities to see how the association is encouraging honey production as an alternative income to charcoal burning or we can go and look for a different kind of primate during a mangabey trek. This is the only place in the world where habituated mangabey monkeys can be easily seen.