Itinerary

Day 1   
Travel day   
International flight

Day 2
Lake Victoria Hotel
Entebbe, Uganda   
Arrive Entebbe International Airport.  Pickup by Deeper Africa guide after clearing customs.   Your Deeper Africa guide will have a sign that has your name on it. Transport to the Lake Victoria Hotel.
 
Dinner and overnight at Lake Victoria Hotel.  Swimming pool available. 

Day 3
Nile Safari Lodge
Murchison Falls National Park   
Breakfast at Lake Victoria Hotel. Day drive to Murchison Falls National Park. This scenic drive includes dropping down the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley with spectacular views of Lake Albert.  You’ll drive along the Rift valley floor to the southern banks of the Nile River.  Nile Safari Lodge is located on the banks of the Victoria Nile with each tented room overlooking the river. The bar and restaurant also overlook the river with beautiful views of the sunset.

Although wildlife suffered greatly from poaching during the 1970s and 1980s, the park now contains healthy populations of over 76 mammal species including elephant, giraffe, hartebeest, buffalo, lion, leopard, Uganda kob, and hippo. The park’s varied habitats including savanna, papyrus swamp, woodland and tropical forest are also home to 450 bird species.

Dinner and overnight at Nile Safari Lodge.  Swimming pool available. 

Day 4
Nile Safari Lodge
Murchison Falls National Park  
Breakfast at Nile Safari Lodge. Drive to the town of Paraa and board a private boat  for a three-hour trip on the Victoria Nile to the base of Murchison Falls.  There will be plenty of wildlife and birds to view on the trip, including the Shoebill stork.  This is a leisurely and relaxing boat trip. 

The Nile is the lifeblood of Murchison Falls National Park, sustaining large numbers of hippo, crocodile, and waterbirds.  After the boat trip you’ll drive to the top of the falls for lunch.  Take a walk in the area.  You’ll have impressive views of the falls where the Nile is forced through a 20-foot wide gap in the rocks and drops 145 feet over the escarpment.  This waterfall is the largest natural force of water in the world creating what appears to be a boiling caldron of water.

Dinner and overnight at Nile Safari Lodge.

Day 5
Nile Safari Lodge
Murchison Falls National Park   
Breakfast at Nile Safari Lodge.  Morning drive to the ferry that will allow you to cross the Nile in order to view wildlife in the northern sector of the park.  Most of the wildlife in the park is found in the area north of the Victoria Nile River and east of the Albert Nile and Lake Albert. This is where part of the movie The African Queen was filmed.   Wildlife is returning to the park and game drives can be very exciting. Wildlife often seen includes elephant, oribi, giraffe, waterbuck, hartebeest, topi, buffalo, sitatunga, bushbuck, warthog, bush pig, lion, leopard, mongoose, genet, hyena, jackal, and bat eared fox.

Dinner and overnight at Nile Safari Lodge.

Day 6
Ndali Lodge
Kibale National Park
Breakfast at Nile Safari Lodge.  Begin a drive after breakfast to Ndali Lodge near Kibale Forest National Park and the Bunyaruguru Crater Lake region.  You will make your way to the colonial homestead of the Price family, which is set just above Lake Nyinambuga.  Aubrey Price is your host for a relaxing and comfortable stay.  

Activities available at Ndali Lodge include:
Walking around Lake Nyinambuga or through the 1,000 acre farm to Mahoma Waterfall;
Relaxing on the verandah of this old African homestead with views of the Rwenzoris and the western corridor of the Great African Rift Valley;
Bird watching from the cottages or out on the trails;
Hiking into the nearby organic farm or to tea and vanilla fields.  Ndali is a working farm and they organically grow much of the fruits and vegetables served at the lodge.     

Dinner and overnight at Ndali Lodge.

Day 7
Ndali Lodge
Kibale National Park   
Breakfast at Ndali Lodge.  Up early after breakfast to drive to Kibale Forest National Park.  You enter the forest at Kanyanchu with rangers from the Ugandan Wildlife Authority who are actively engaged in the primate research at Kibale.  Trek out in search of the park’s chimpanzees and other primates.  Several families of chimpanzees have been habituated by the researchers.  Over 325 bird species are reported in the Kibale area.  Kibale Forest supports one of the highest primate densities in the world, including chimpanzees, red colubus, black and white colubus, red tailed monkeys, blue monkeys, vervet monkeys, l’hoests monkeys, grey cheeked mangabey, and olive baboons.  

It is a short drive to the home of Tinka John, a community leader of the Bigodi Community Project.  You’ll join Tinka for a traditional lunch served in typical Ugandan fashion.  Tinka will tell you about his work in the local community, which involves getting tourism projects started and sharing the profits from those projects with the local farming people in the area. These ecotourism efforts have built a local library and a new secondary school.   This grassroots community project run by the Kibale Association for Rural and Environmental Development is a successful conservation and tourism endeavor. 

After lunch, you will hike around the Bigodi Swamp with one of the community guides.  You’ll walk through local crop lands at the edge of the Bigodi Wetlands Sanctuary.  The Sanctuary trails are considered some of the finest birding trails in Uganda.  With luck, you will see one of the forest’s great blue touraco.  The wetlands also support many small primates, including vervets, colubus, and blue monkeys.  Late afternoon activities at Ndali Lodge, as you choose.         

Dinner and overnight at Ndali Lodge.

Day 8
Mweya Lodge
Queen Elizabeth National Park   
Breakfast at Ndali Lodge.  Drive out after breakfast for the famous savannahs and lakes of Queen Elizabeth National Park - home to herds of the Ugandan national animal, the Ugandan kob.  You’ll be right at the equator and the foot of the snowcapped Rwenzoris, the “Mountains of the Moon”, once thought to be the source of the Nile.  Queen Elizabeth National Park is split into distinct sectors by water, the most important being the Kazinga Channel, Lake Edward, and Lake George.   Today you will be exploring the savannah and wetlands ecosystems in the north sector of the park.  Populations of Ugandan kob, buffalo, bushbuck, waterbuck, elephant, giant forest hogs and warthog were hit hard by poaching in Uganda, but wildlife populations are rapidly increasing.    Lunch at Mweya Lodge overlooking Lake Edward in the central area of the park.

Dinner and overnight at Mweya Lodge.  Swimming pool available. 

Day 9
Mweya Lodge
Queen Elizabeth National Park   
Breakfast at Mweya Lodge.  Set your wildlife viewing schedule in Queen Elizabeth National Park with your guide.  Lunch at Mweya Lodge with an afternoon aboard a private boat launch for a trip down the Kazinga Channel. You’ll spend about two hours aboard the boat, viewing some of the largest concentration of hippo in the world, along with good sightings of waterbuck, buffalo, and other game that come to the water to drink.  There are many fish in the channel which attract substantial populations of aquatic birds.   

Dinner and overnight at Mweya Lodge.

Day 10
Gorilla Forest Camp
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest   
After breakfast, you’ll move to the northern end of the park near Maramagambo Forest.  In this area the biodiversity and animals show greater affinity to Central African forests rather than East African forests.  After visiting the Maramagambo Forest area, you’ll travel south into the remote and open Ishasha plains in the southwest of Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Famous for tree-climbing lions in the fig trees, the Ishasha plains are also home to elephants, Ugandan kob, topi, eland, buffalo, wart hogs, and other savannah wildlife.  The Ishasha River supports a healthy hippo population.  Wildlife view with a picnic lunch. After lunch, you will continue the drive south into the Bwinidi Impenetrable Forest region.  Late afternoon arrival at the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest park gate.

Dinner and overnight at Gorilla Forest Camp.

Day 11
Gorilla Forest Camp
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest   
Breakfast at the Gorilla Forest Camp.  After breakfast you’ll attend an introductory session at the park headquarters to learn about forest and gorilla trekking etiquette.  Ugandan park guides will be taking you into the rain forest and there will be park guides in your party who work daily with the gorillas in Bwindi.  You’ll hike to the point where the gorillas were seen the day before and track from that point.  Trekking can range from 1 to 5 hours as you move into the gorilla’s home range.  The terrain is rough and sometimes muddy.  Picnic lunches are provided.   Birds abound with over 350 species sighted. 

Close to half of the world’s mountain gorilla populations (approximately 320) reside in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.  Mountain gorillas’ larger size and thicker fur coats distinguish them from their lowland counterparts.  Seeing mountain gorillas is considered to be the most profound wildlife viewing experience in the world.        

•    No more than eight guests are allowed to view each of the three habituated gorilla families at any one time.
•    You should maintain a distance of at least 7 meters from the gorillas.  Do not touch the gorillas or try to make contact.  The gorillas will break the rules occasionally.  In such cases, don’t increase the distance between you and them, but drop back as soon as you can without disturbing them.
•    Do not use flash cameras.
•    Do not eat or smoke.
•    Do not do anything that may cause the gorillas stress or exhibit any behavior that they may see as a challenge.  Respect their space, speak very quietly, and avoid unnecessary movement. 
•    Keep in a small group and never surround the gorillas.
•    Leave nothing behind but footprints.
   
Dinner and overnight at Gorilla Forest Camp.

Day 12
Gorilla Forest Camp
Bwindi Forest   
Breakfast at Gorilla Forest Camp.   Choose your activities for the day from the following:

Hiking on the Waterfall Trail, which follows the Munyaga River; 
Community Village Cultural Walk through the local Buhoma Village.  This walk is led by a community guide who will take you through the Buhoma market area and out on the local trails to meet the village banana brewer and a traditional medicinal healer.  Along the way, notice the traditional farms and homes.  Villagers may come out to greet you.  If you choose we can arrange for you to visit the people of the local Batwa tribe.  These people were displaced out of their traditional forest habitat by the Ugandan government in 1991 when Bwindi Forest was declared a World Heritage site. 
Visit to Bwindi Hospital to learn more about their community health programs.  Visit www.bwindihospital.com to learn more about the work that the hospital does throughout this region in Uganda.  

Lunch at the lodge or a packed lunch while you are hiking.

Dinner and overnight at Gorilla Forest Camp.

Day 13
Mihingo Lodge
Lake Mburo National Park   
Breakfast at Gorilla Forest Camp.  Drive eastward toward Lake Mburo National Park. Pass through beautiful agricultural countryside where fruits and vegetables grow in abundance. Turn off the main road to look for herds of Ankole cattle famous for their long horns, raised by the Banyankore people.   You will do traditional wildlife viewing throughout the park’s ecosystems which include savannah, acacia woodland, swamp, and lake environments.  This Ugandan park is the only reserve in Uganda to support a population of impalas.  There are plentiful topi, bushbuck, zebra, buffalo, eland, reedbuck, and warthogs.  Viewings of predators are rarer, but the water environments bring abundant sightings of hippos.  At least 315 bird species have been recorded in Lake Mburo National Park with many East African bird species present at the very northern limit of their range.  Your lodge is set in a series of rugged hills on the west side of the park with majestic views of Lake Mburo and the undulating grassy valleys that hold wonderful wildlife viewing opportunities.   Hiking and walking are available from the lodge.     

Dinner and overnight at Mihingo Lodge.  Swimming pool available.     

Day 14
Transit to Entebbe   
Breakfast at Mihingo Lodge.   Morning for wildlife viewing in the park or hiking, as you choose.   Drive out in the morning for Kampala.  If time permits, stop in Kampala for lunch, shopping and a visit with the Mpigi Royal Drum Makers.

Dinner at Lake Victoria Hotel and transport to the Entebbe Airport for connection to your international flight. 

Day 15   
Travel day  
International flight

More information from Deeper Africa:

• View trip on provider's website
  www.deeperafrica.com/adventures/deeper-uganda/…
• Company profile, experience, and history
• View all of their trips