Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

The Batwa cultural experience was put in place by the displaced Batwa pygmies to educate their children and to share their amazing heritage and traditions with the world. The Experience takes place outside of the park in an old-growth forest on land that is next to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest Park. The Batwa experience begins with a nature-walk, hike through the forest seeing the forest in a new way, through the eyes of the original people of the Forest. Learn how they hunted the small animals they used for food, what things they gathered, how traps and nets were used.

The Batwa Experience will also show you how they lived in huts made of grass, trees, the use of tree-houses, caves. Experience the Batwa village life of old, the sharing, of living as a community, as a people, learn the things that they revered and cared for and almost lost. Visit a traditional Batwa homestead and learn from the women how to prepare, cook and serve a meal. You will also have the opportunity to sample the prepared dishes.

Besides gorilla trekking, Bwindi offers yet another interesting activity-hiking/nature walks where tourists can get to explore several attractions in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The hiking is normally from the north of Bwindi to the South. You can have an overnight stay and continue the next day down to Lake Mutanda where you paddle across in a wooden dugout and continue to the town of Kisoro. A boat ride is also possible at Lake Mutanda.

The hiking time ranges from 5 to 9 hours or less. You can opt to have a Kashasha River Trail: While on this trail, be ready to spend at least 5 hours and it involves steeper inclines especially if you take the Buhoma to Nkuringo route which is 600 meters up at the end of the trail. Knowledgeable and experienced guides will answer all your questions about the wildlife and the birds, plants, flowers, ferns, and trees in the area.

Enjoy cycling tours and mountain biking experience in Bwindi Impenetrable National park as you extend your support to the locals through the Ride 4 a Woman project. The Organization offers a brand-new activity enjoyed at Buhoma that allows a visitor to partake a variety of Bicycle rides within the forest and within the local community. Those people that participate in such activities directly offer to support the neighboring community.

During this bike ride, visitors learn about the lifestyles of the Batwa as well as Bagika people and will see as well as learn things they knew nothing about, tour the fascinating craft center, the traditional medicinal healer with his different medicines collected from the forest, the gin distillery and the banana brewery, Mukono Primary School, as well as the river to see women washing their clothes, in addition, to observe the plentiful of butterflies on the adjacent rock and above all the Batwa-Pygmy community.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is known haven for Mountain Gorilla trekking with over 400 mountain gorillas resident in the highlands of this tropical rain forest. There are 4 locations for gorilla trekking in this park; i.e. Buhoma, Ruhija, Rushaga, and Nkuringo sectors with over 35 gorilla families but only 14 gorilla groups are habituated as of 2018. Gorilla trekking permits are available for purchase at the reservations office of Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Headquarters or through a reputable tour agent at only USD600.00 per person.

On a typical day of gorilla trekking, you’ll leave early in the morning for your briefing at the Park HQ where after the trek for the gorillas will commence from. Only 8 visitors are allowed to view the gorillas for one hour per day, participants must be aged 15 or over. and they will be accompanied by UWA guides while with the Gorillas. Gorilla trekking is an activity that can last a few hours to almost the whole day, depending on how far the group has moved since it was observed nesting up the previous evening.

Besides the popular gorilla trekking activity in Bwindi, the Uganda Wildlife Authority introduced gorilla habituation since January 2014. This activity can only be done in Bwindi Forest! Gorilla habituation is done all year round in Bwindi forest as well as booking for its permits, however, we recommend early bookings. A single habituation permit goes for 1,500 US dollars per person inclusive of park entry fees. Once you’ve booked your permit, you are guaranteed to spend four hours with gorillas contrary to one-hour gorilla trekking encounter.

If you are interested in the gorilla habituation experience, please contact us in advance to reserve you gorilla habituation permit as part of your gorilla tour package. You can also contact Uganda Wildlife Authority’s reservations office by mail if you want to book the permit directly.

Tourists can not only visit Bwindi Impenetrable National Park for mountain gorillas but also for bird watching experience since the forest is known to be a bird watchers haven with 350 bird species on record which include 25 restricted-range species such as Green Broadbill -Pseudocalyptomena graueri-Vulnerable, Grauer’s Rush Warbler -Bradypterus graueri; Endangered, Chapin’s Flycatcher -Muscicapa lendu; Vulnerable and Shelley’s Crimson-wing -Cryptospiza Shelley- Vulnerable.

Many of the bird watching tours at Bwindi forest are at the Buhoma area along the forest margins and on village paths or in the Ruhija section where forest birding and swamp birding take place with knowledgeable local guides. The gem for forest birding at Ruhija is at the Mubwindi swamp where some rare Albertine endemics and lifers can be observed in their national habitats.