Well, I finally have some new content to show. At the spur of the moment Christine and I decided to visit Uganda, primarily to see the Mountain Gorillas of Bwindi 'impenetrable' Forest, but also to visit Kibale and Queen Elizabeth National Park. We'd traveled through Uganda once in the past but had never visited any of the main wildlife destinations.
We used a Ugandan wildlife tour company called Gorillatours (www.gorillatours.com), who were very good value for money and provided an excellent service. Gorillatours have been operating for over 20 years and have an impeccable trip advisor rating, so book with confidence.
Uganda is such a beautiful country, with spectacular vegetated volcanic scenery throughout the western border area with Congo, with innumerable volcanic cones and crater lakes fringing the flanks of rift valleys. The east of the country is dominated by the shores of the stunning Lake Victoria. Everywhere you go in the country the land is covered with lush vegetation including large tracts of primary rain forest. As a consequence Uganda is one of the best places in Africa for seeing primates. We saw Red Colobus, Black and White Colobus, Red-tailed and Vervet monkeys, as well as Chimpanzee and the incredible Mountain Gorillas.
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a more traditional east African style park, but it does not have the biodiversity of the more famous Kenyan and Tanzanian parks due to the type of grass present. Elephants and buffalo, however, were present in great abundance, as were the unique Ugandan Kob. A wildlife viewing boat trip along the Kazinga Channel provides one of the best opportunities to see all that QENP has to offer, particularly some of 6,000 hippos that live along this waterway. Hippos were also common visitors to our Bush Lodge and we saw them while walking around the grounds on a couple of occasions.
Many of the pictures of monkeys were captured within the grounds of the lodges Gorillatours use, which are usually surrounded by original tracts of primary forest. If you ever end up visiting Uganda make sure you visit the Botanical gardens which contain three species of monkeys that are used to the presence of people, as well as abundant bird life. It's an easy walk from the lovely guest house we used - African Roots Guesthouse.
The gallery below shows some images from the trip. For further images please check the 'East African Wildlife' gallery from the main menu.
