Travel News, African Safari Updates

Like an old man ‘s teeth time has eroded Mt Sabinyo’s crown. Mt Sabinyo offers three challenging peaks to climb. Climb up Mt Sabinyo takes one up a ridge along eastern side to peak one. This is one of the challenging mountains that offer Uganda tours one of the interesting adventures for the mountain hikers. If one wishes to continue, the peak 11 involves walking ridge with breath taking drops into Rwanda and Uganda. This Mountain is both vital to Rwanda safaris and Ugandan safaris as well. The final hike goes up to the peak 111 is steep with several ladders and much scrambling. Once on top of 111 you will be in Rwanda Uganda and Democratic republic of Congo at the same time. Mt Sabinyo is one of the interesting attractions in Mgahinga gorilla national park that also contributes to Uganda birding and acts as homes for birds in the country. Although is the smallest park in the country, (33.7kms) is very important, as it is one of the only two national parks in Uganda that offer habitat for the endangered mountain gorillas and boosts gorilla safaris and gorilla tours as well.

Mgahinga gorilla national park Situated in kisoro district, southwestern Uganda, this park was gazetted in 1991 and is part of the virunga conservation area, which is 434km. It adjoins Rwanda’s volcano and the DRC virunga national parks. Mgahinga gorilla national park experiences two wet rainy seasons; February-May and September – December of each year. The maximum amount of rainfall in a year is 250mm (October) and minimum

Tracking Mountain Gorillas is an experience of a lifetime. The mountain Gorillas is known to occur in mainly in two populations, the Volcanoes population boosting Rwanda safaris and the Bwindi populations contributing to Uganda gorilla safaris as well as Uganda tours. The tracking experience will begin at 8:30am with a briefing and then off for the experience. The guide, tracker and ranger normally accompanied the adventurers. Tracking can take three to eight hours and often takes people through think jungle. The mountain gorillas is the world’s most endangered ape found only in small portions of protected afromontane forests in southwestern Uganda, northwestern Rwanda and eastern Congo. The mountain gorillas are one of many species unique to these forests. The forests are also home to many wonderful birds, primates, large mammals, reptiles, insects and plants. They also ensure continued water and medicinal plant resources for the local communities.

Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has been blessed with more than half of the global estimated population of 780 mountain gorillas making the country more popular than the rest. Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is situated in south-western Uganda, on the edge of the western rift valley( Albertine rift) and is shared by Kanungu, Kabale and Kisoro Districts. It is 331 square kilometers in size and on the altitude range of 1,160 meters to 2,607 meters. The annual average temperatures range from 7C°-20C°with the coldest period being June and July.  Bwindi Impenetrable National Park borders Congo and is UNESCO World Heritage site. The park boasts over 326 mountain gorillas, the largest of all Ape species in the world. Bwindi Impenetrable national park is the only forest in Africa in which both Gorillas and Chimpanzees live together. The number of Bwindi chimpanzee population size is unidentified but estimated at 350-400. The forests where the mountain gorillas live are often cloudy, misty and cold. One can even wonder how th ey survive in such habitat and thus no wonder that their population has been increasing for some time instead decreasing.

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Tourism has played a responsibility in icon structure in Rwanda. Rwanda has been participating in International Fairs Like WTM in London and ITB in Berlin and New York Adventurers. Rwanda took the fourth position at Berlin fair among 57 African stands in 2005. Although gorilla tourism seems to be the focus, there is a lot to be done as per Rwanda tours. With the structure of Rwanda office of tourism and National parks, a department of community conservation was created to sensitize the communities around the park about importance of national parks both in terms of conservation and tourism.

The Akagera today is one of the popular attractions visited by tourists. The culture and tradition like the traditional wear is more outstanding than even what lies in National parks. Rwandan culture is unique and constitutes a valuable tourists attraction on its own. Its development is definitely an added advantage to Rwanda tours especially the explorers who have been identified as one target segment of the visitors. There is a lot of potential that still exists outside the existing areas ready for tours in Rwanda, that need further improvements like lake activities on lake Kivu, kibuye and Cyangugu. Exploiting the full potential in every province especially the non-traditional sites could complement Akagera National, Park, Parc de Nationale and Nyungwe National Park. This would also stretch to beautiful scenic views like Nasho area, Rusumo waterfalls and many other tourism sites to boost more Rwandan safaris than depending mainly the primate’s safaris in national park.

The recent census shows that there is increase in the population of the highly endangered Mountain Gorillas in Virunga Mountain in democratic republic of Congo. Virunga is one of the gorilla regions in Africa that contributes to gorilla safaris. Besides Bwindi Impenetrable National park that has almost a half of the Mountain gorillas in Africa making it a leading region for gorilla tours, Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park and Mgahinga of Uganda shares the rest with Virunga National Park and also important as well for gorilla safaris in Africa.  Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park is also popular for Rwanda safaris and Rwanda tours se well. Though the there is an Increase in Mountain gorillas of Virunga National Park, The area is not popular compared to the other two areas of Impenetrable National Park and Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.

There are only two small populations of mountain gorilla in the world; these rear endangered human relatives were made famous by Dian Fossey and the Holly Wood movie ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ are today the focus of a unique gorilla eco tourism programme which generates valuable income for the park Authorities, Local communities and the national tourism industry. Small group of tourists pay large fees to spend one hour with one of the gorilla families, which have been habituated to human presence.

The census is a large and expensive undertaking, a total of 100 team members participated along with numerous support staff, porters, drivers and logistics coordinators, drawn from the staff of the protected area authorities and their partners to identify the entire gorilla habitat range.  Gorillas do not carry passports nor recognize international boundaries, and therefore move freely within the continues forest block across the three countries, this has to be considered therefore as one shared population and census is normally done in all national parks simultaneously in one complete sweep.