It was said by Sir Winston Churchill for one, who famously described Uganda as “The pearl of Africa”, that Uganda is one of the most beautiful countries in Africa. In fact, Uganda is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and I don’t just mean it’s physically beautiful, but the people themselves, who seem permanently to smile, and pretty welcoming as the landscape.
A self drive holiday in Uganda with wildlife and primates is yet a life changing experience one can ever do. Most of the superlative descriptions you read about Uganda are absolutely true, and it really, a place of sparkling lakes, lofty mountains and mysterious forests. Before, visiting Uganda was by use of local operators offering escorted trips and now with the new modification in tourism, operators offers the self drive car rental with rooftop tents and they offer suitable and amazing stay in the great wilderness.
Best known as the place to see mountain gorillas, no safari to the country should exclude this magnificent experience. I have been privileged to visit them several times; each uniquely special and well-worth the trek it takes to find them on Bwindi’s almost sheer vertical slopes.
Uganda’s central attraction is the opportunity to track one of the world’s last surviving mountain gorilla populations on the misty green slopes of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park or Mgahinga Gorilla National Parks. This is feasibly the ultimate African wildlife encounter: the simple exhilaration attached to first setting eyes on one of these gentle giants is difficult to encounter.
These are extremely large animals, a male silver back weighs three times as much as the average man, its bulk is exaggerated by a shaggily luxuriant coat, but also astonishingly peaceable, with the initially disconcerting but ultimately winning habit of staring deep into the eyes of human visitors, with soft brown eyes that appear to be seeking out some sort of connection.
That magical hour with Uganda’s gorillas is relatively expensive and the trek up can sometimes be hard work, but in almost 10 years writing about Uganda, I have yet to meet anybody who has gone gorilla-tracking and regretted the financial or physical expense.
On your self drive in Uganda, you can visit Kibale Forest National Park and has what’s often described as the greatest variety of primates on the planet and this is just one of the places you can track a habituated troop of chimpanzees s they groove through the treetops.
After an initial briefing, the assembled tourists are assigned into several groups each under the guidance of a ranger and one security personnel. To reach the chimpanzee group assigned, we had to drive a short distance in our own vehicle to arrive at the starting point of the walk.
On the chimp trek, the group is fully habituated. You get to spend just one hour with them but you are likely to be within a few meters of several as they are so comfortable around people. Sometimes they will pass right beside you.
The ranger is always in touch with the trackers and after a short walk we came across a male chimpanzee lying on the ground taking a morning siesta. This allowed us to approach it and see it from the closest permissible. A minimum distance is required to be maintained from any chimpanzee and should one approach the human group, it is advised to ensure maintain their distance.
It turned out that the chimpanzee lying on the ground was the leader of the group that we were supposed to watch. After allowing us to watch him for a while, the chimpanzee got up and without any care in the world walked right through our cordon. Needless to say, we gave him a passage as was possible under the circumstances.
Thereafter, we followed the chimpanzee group who we mostly on the top of the trees. Once a while, one in the group would come down the tree. The ranger also acquainted with the fauna. The trek ends with returning to the starting point, where individual certificates of completing the trek is handed over It’s a wonderful experience.
Other safari highlights include the Queen Elizabeth National Park; unlike the rest of Uganda, it’s more like of typical grassland habitats seen in Kenya and Tanzania and is good for spotting hippos and crocodiles in the great lakes, and Murchison Falls, famous for its waterfall on the Nile and the spectacular birdlife, a sighting of a shoe bill stork here would be a massive tick on any birdwatcher’s list.
And when you cross to the East side, at Jinja, there’s the opportunity to go white-water rafting among many other adventure activities at the source of the Nile, and Kampala with its mind-boggling taxis stands and colourful markets offers a fascinating insight into typical African street life. So, if you’re looking for a safari destination that offers pretty much a bit of everything but that still retains a sense of the unusual then Uganda is unlikely to disappoint.