Things to do in Bwindi impenetrable national park
Things to do in Bwindi impenetrable national park, One of the most loved and visited national parks in Uganda is bwindi impenetrable forest national park. The 331 sq.km national park is found in south western part of Uganda in Kanungu district. The large primeval forest is a home to so many attractions and a number of activities can be done there. Even though mountain gorillas activities are the most done in Bwindi. Tourists have other activities to do there and they include the following.
Gorilla trekking
The most reason as to why tourists visit is gorilla trekking. The national park has the highest population of mountain gorillas ad number of gorilla families in the world. These live in 4 sectors of the park – Ruhija, Rushaga, Buhoma, and Nkuringo. Gorilla trekking does happen in all the park sectors. Because each has got fully habituated mountain gorilla families.
Gorilla trekking is where tourists be around the mountain gorillas for a maximum of 1 hour. The tourists start the activity in the morning with a briefing at the sector offices. Where rangers first teach the rules and regulations of the activity. The armed ranger guides lead trekkers into the jungle and they start searching for where the apes are. After hours of searching, tourists will see mountain gorillas and be around them for 1 hour.
Gorilla habituation
Gorilla habituation is an activity done by tourists who want to spend more than one hour around the mountain gorillas. With gorilla habituation, tourists do stay with mountain gorillas for 4 hours. They are allowed to be part of the activities that make gorillas get used to human beings around them. Like gorilla trekking, tourists doing out the gorilla habituation activity search for mountain gorillas. And the moment they see them the 4 hours start counting.
Community tours
Community tours in Bwindi impenetrable forest are done in areas near the park that are occupied by Batwa pygmies. Batwa pygmies were forest dwellers way back before 1991 but the government evicted them from jungle and they decided in the areas nearby. To know more about them you need to visit different homes and meet elders who will teach you how they lived in the jungle. They ate small animals, fruits, honey and used plants as medicine and perfume.
Bird watching
Bwindi impenetrable forest is a home to over 350 bird species. Â These birds live in the thick tropical rain forest and the swampy areas of the park. On a safari to bwindi impenetrable forest national park if you are a good bird you need to carry out bird watching from here. Therefore the park is one of the best bird watching species in Uganda with some 14 bird species endemic to the albertine region.
Bird watching will give you an opportunity to watch bird species such as Doherty’s bushshrike, bar tailed trogon, shelley’s crimsonwing, handsome spurfowl, black billed turaco, klaas’s cuckoo, brown capped weaver, kivu ground thrush, mountain wagtail, crested guinea fowl, pettit’s cuckoo shrike, African citril, Angolan swallow, broadbill, rwenzori batis, cattle egret, lizard buzzard, marabou stork, Eurasian hobby, palm nut vulture, black bee eater, and common sand piper among
Guided nature walks
To get so close to nature you need to move around bwindi impenetrable forest national park on foot. The activity is called nature walk and its led by armed ranger guides for safety of tourists and animals. Therefore, the nature walks are done using different forest trails and which one to use depends on what tourista want to see. During natire walks, tourist do get an opportunity to see mammals, primates, birds and vegetation of bwindi impenetrable forest national park.
When to go there
Travelers can go for different activities in bwindi impenetrable forest national park any month of the year. Dry season months are the best to visit bwindi because of the good weather conditions there. In the dry season, park receives little or no rainfall and some times not all which keeps the trekking trails dry, vegetation is dried up and tourists get clear views of the animals. During the rainy season, the park activities can still be done however one needs to come well prepared for the weather.
Getting there
One can get to bwindi impenetrable forest national park using road transport or air transport. Raod transport can be from Kigali or kampala depending on which air port you decide to use. A 4 to 5 hours using cyanika border or katuna border in western Uganda. From Kampala, by road transport you go through mpigi, masaka, lyantonde, mbarara, Ntungamo and kabala to the park.
Using air transport which is the fasted way to get to the park, tourists can fly to kihihi or kisoro airstrip and connect to Bwindi impenetrable forest national park. In Uganda there are so many airline companies that have flights to different national parks including bwindi impenetrable forest national park. It takes 1 hours and less than 30 minutes for flights to move from Entebbe international airport/Kajjansi airstrip to Kisoro or Kihihi airstrip.