Yoga with the Gorillas and Chimps

Depart Kampala for Entanda Cultural Adventure. This is a community-based tourism initiative that offers authentic traditional cultural experiences. Here, you will understand more about Uganda as you get a chance to interact with traditional elders and local community members. They are eager to tell, teach and demonstrate about their ways of life. You will dine with them, an open fruit buffet awaits you with locally sourced fruits grown organically. Come ready to dance to their drum beats and ululating vocals. Participate and learn about traditional food, local medicines, African family management, evolution of dress code and the local economic activities. Have a sumptuous traditional lunch, plant a tree in your name and later in the afternoon, continue to Fort Portal for dinner and an overnight stay at a lodge on the Edge of Kibale Forest National Park.

Start your day with a relaxing 1-hour Yoga session to prepare your mind, body and soul for the day in the tropical rainforest. The session will help to improve your breathing, mindfulness linked with wellness and will stretch those muscles and joints to alleviate any pains!

After the Yoga exercise, you will have your breakfast – made of fresh organic fruits, vegetables, eggs and other eats designed to replenish your energies to give you more health! Head to the park information centre where we will be grouped with other chimpanzee lovers, get briefed and hit the forest trails where lovely chimps await to welcome us with chatters. These friends live in troops and have been habituated to tolerate our presence. The rangers will provide relevant information about the chimpanzee and interpret their behavior. They are most active in the morning hours, so you will meet them feeding, play and jump through trees. You will also encounter lots of bird species. In essence, this activity will allow you the opportunity to connect with nature, observing, hearing and learning how simply beautiful the natural ecosystem is.

We will then go have lunch and later in the afternoon choose to either relax or make simple community walks around the sunbird hill on the forest edge. End the day with 20 minutes muscle stretch to allow you a good night sleep!

You will visit the Tooro craters, a series of crater lakes all sharing the same formation but holding different values at attachments to the communities. You will have some minimum hikes and community walks. Spectacular views await. One of the most spectacular views will be earned after a hike at Mabeere ga Nyinamwiru, where in addition to learning about the legend of the ancient princess, you will be rewarded with a view of three lakes from one spot. The hike is slightly challenging but the reward in terms of views and muscle stretches is unbelievable. Have lunch in Fort portal town, and proceed to Queen Elizabeth National Park for overnight stay.

We shall check in our lodge later in the afternoon, freshen up, relax a bit and get ready for the power sunset bush yoga. This will be essential since earlier in the day we would have hiked and engaged our muscles and joints. This session is designed to simply bring yourself familiar to your inner body, connect, unite, and explore the expansive plains with a soothing breeze and sounds of only wild creatures, big and small.  It’s a wonderful way to end the day and prepare for a goodnight sleep!

Early in the morning, the driver will pick you up from the lodge and drive to the Kasenyi sector of Queen Elizabeth National park for a morning game drive. This is done to be able to encounter nocturnal animals before they run for the days cover. The park is diverse with eco system such as crater lakes, swamps, plains among others and it is a home to lions, leopards, hyenas, elephants, lots of Uganda Kobs, herds of buffaloes, bushbucks, waterbucks. The park has many other predators and prey animals feeding in the beautiful plains which you will encounter during the game drive.

Then later in the afternoon you will drive, passing the lake Nyamunuuka, a dead crater lake that supports no life and has a very strong smell that is felt if the wind blows to your direction.  You will have an afternoon launch cruise on the Kazinga Channel, a natural channel that connects two lakes Edward and George.  Here your eyes will be treated to varieties of bird species some looking for ticks, others fishing and others merely enjoying the cool breeze, wild animals, such as elephants, buffaloes and dozens of schools of hippos drinking water, cooling off, and some basking on the banks of the channel.  This channel is believed to have the world’s largest concentration of hippopotamus as tens of hundreds of hippo schools are seen maintaining their territories.

Return to the lodge for a special fitness session that has been designed to mimic animal movements. The movements include among others those of lions, caterpillars, chimpanzee, crocodiles, buffaloes, scorpions and dogs. Your exercise session will include these movements, and as well will have a question and answer slot about fitness. Enjoy a specially made dinner and retreat to our rooms for overnight stay.

After morning breakfast, you will be transferred to Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, the only forest in Africa that can make this claim. It also hosts five other species of primates (in addition to Mountain gorillas), 113 species of mammals such as baboons, Chimpanzees as well as elephants and over 200 species of butterflies, 360 species of birds and 400 species of plants.

You will drive on the edges of the famous Ishasha, known for its tree climbing lions, a bonus treat with wildlife species like the Topis, red necked spur fowl and lots more.

On arrival at the lodge in Bwindi in the afternoon and right away be served lunch after which you will be left to the forest feels and relaxing for the rest of the day. Diner and overnight stay at the lodge.

Have an early morning breakfast, you will have a lunch package after which you will get to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest information Centre for briefing. A walking stick will be provided to you and local potters are available to assist you with heavy luggage you choose to carry. However, you are advised to only carry very limited luggage and inform the lodge management or the guide of the valuables left behind for extra safety. You will then set off into this tropical rainforest, hilly and soggy, to track the mountain gorillas. It’s a fairly tough walk but one you’ll never forget – the sight of these apes as they feed, play and relax is not only a humbling and emotional experience but a privileged opportunity to get up close and personal with Uganda’s very own “Gorillas in the Mist”. Besides the gorillas, you will encounter hundreds of bird species, small mammals, primates and lots of plant life.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest boasts both mountain gorillas and chimpanzees. The gorillas you track belong to one of nine habituated family groups who can tolerate the presence of humans for a brief period every day. You will be allowed a maximum of one hour with the gorillas but tracking them can take up to 7 hours. 

After the hike, you will then head to Lake Bunyonyi, check in at your lodge where you will spend the night.

Our day will begin with a 90-minute Yoga session, designed to have you sweat, elongate muscles, fix joints, your back and most importantly improve your breathing. The session will be done in front of the rolling hills that kiss Lake Bunyonyi and in plain sights of the dozens of islands that make up the lake. You can be guaranteed of a fresh breeze and a morning sunrise as you enjoy the warrior 2 pose!

After the yoga session, you will refresh and have your morning breakfast. Lake Bunyonyi is believed to be Uganda’s deepest volcanic lake as its depth is still mythical. The views here are very eye catching. The lake has 33 islands on which people peacefully settle except for the one punishment island which was a disciplinary place where girls, who got pregnant before marriage, an act of abomination were abandoned to starve to death. You will have a boat ride on lake Bunyonyi, and if you wish, you can engage into zip-lining.

Depart Lake Bunyonyi heading back to Kampala. There will be multiple stopovers at the equator monument and Igongo Cultural Museum.  The driver will drop you off in either Entebbe or Kampala. Have one final simple stretch before boarding your plane to return home.