Uganda | Bwindi | berggorilla
Lake Mburo National Park (260 km2) is an ideal stopover for visitors travelling over land from Kampala to Bwindi. Few parks offer such a wide variety of flora, landscape and fauna per km2. Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is also an unmissable place to visit. It's simply impossible to even imagine beforehand what it's like to be amongst 340 mountain gorillas; the sight of these colossal creatures in their natural environment is an indescribably unique experience.
Lake Mburo National Park is located in a beautiful savannah park that has something for everyone: hills, open plains, lakes, swamps, acacia forests and grasslands. The centrally located lake, Lake Mburo, is one of five lakes that together with a 50-kilometre swamp and Ruizi River make up an extensive marshland ecosystem within the parameters of the park. Despite its relatively small size, no less than 68 different species of mammal - including leopards, zebras, impalas, sitatungas and buffaloes - and 310 species of bird live in the richly variegated habitats here. You may also spy cattle belonging to local landowners grazing among the wild animals.
The magnificent mountain gorillas form a first-rate tourist attraction in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Excellent guides are on hand here who will take you to visit the mountain gorillas, where you can ponder man's supposed superiority over these primates. A visit like this is not an ad hoc decision: you must express the desire to do so well in advance.
January, February and the period between June September are the driest times in this primeval forest. As a result, these are the best months to visit the mountain gorillas - an activity which is referred to as 'gorilla tracking'. The icing in the cake however is that mountain gorillas roam across great distances every day and, as such, you could be tracking these beasts from between three and eight hours.
Your search for mountain gorillas will lead you up steep climbs, which means you will have to take care not to slip on wet leaves or trip over fallen vines. Some climbs will take you to an altitude of almost 2,000 metres; nevertheless, you'll forget all the effort involved in an instance once you've reached the top. The experience of coming face-to-face with a mountain gorilla releases emotions in many visitors that they never imagined possible.
Bwindi is home to 340 of the 600 mountain gorillas. Four groups consisting of around twenty of these gorillas are visited regularly by people. These gorillas have been studied by biologists and other scientists over the course of many years, which means they have learnt to accept humans as part of their natural environment. Each group of gorillas may be visited by a small group of no more than six people for one hour a day.
Increasingly more mountain gorillas in Bwindi
Around half of the world's mountain gorilla population live in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. Wars and poaching once resulted in a sharp decrease in the number of mountain gorillas, yet according to a recent report published in April 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the number living in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park has risen by no less than 12 percent in the last ten years. Around 340 mountain gorillas currently inhabit this area.
'Bwindi' simply means forest or wood in the local vernacular. This impenetrable forest on the high-peaked Virunga Mountains in the south-west of Uganda can quite rightly be referred to as a primeval forest; there have been no ecological changes here over the past 25,000 years. The enormous biodiversity of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest has resulted in it being added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.
Ecological diversity means that a wide diversity of animal species is able to inhabit this park. Mountain gorillas are therefore not the only primates in Bwindi: they are kept company by chimpanzees, colobus monkeys, blue meerkats and grey-cheeked mangabeys. Besides these primates, the forest is also home to leopards, giant forest hogs and smaller, timid species of antelope. 200 different types of butterfly flutter through the park and hornbills and turacos are among the 350 species of bird that colour the skies.
If you don't fancy going in search of mountain gorillas, you could always join one of the guided walks around the area. You might, for example, like to be led along the two-hour trail to the beautiful waterfalls, or prefer to join one of the longer mountain walks, which can last up to seven hours.
