Book gorilla safaris in Uganda and Congo in Africa with Eco Tours Rwanda, ready to give you a dream holiday. Gorilla Trekking in Uganda is surreal and unlike any other experience in Africa. The atmosphere of the trek through the jungle mist is unreal. With each step your anticipation builds and the reward of seeing the last remaining mountain gorillas in the world is spectacular. The setting, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, is arguably one of the most mystical in all of Africa.

Gorilla trekking is a hike into Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a jungle that is home to mountain gorillas. The trek involves getting a little dirty and bushwhacking through thick jungle with an experienced local guide to find a troop of habituated gorillas. Uganda holds 60% of the total mountain gorillas left in the world with about 400 of them residing in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Bwindi is the most popular place to trek the gorillas in Uganda. The park is located in the South-western part of the country and is one of the most diverse national parks in East Africa.

A typical day of trekking starts at a designated meeting point. Ours happened to be the Buhoma park headquarters. You show up at 7:30 for a short video and gorilla briefing at the park headquarters. From there we were divided into groups assigned to the different groups. Groups consist of no more than eight people. Small numbers are easier to manage and do not overwhelm the gorillas. You are assigned to a group with more other people – eight trekkers in total. You set out to track down the Habinyanja family or any other group. A family of 17 gorillas it is the largest habituated gorilla family in Bwindi National Park. Some groups start their trek from the park headquarters, while others will have to drive to a starting point into the forest. You typically will not know until the day of if you will need to drive or start your trek from the headquarters.

Finding the gorillas can take anywhere from one to five hours (sometimes longer). These are wild animals and the trackers have to locate where the gorillas have gone each day. It can take a group less than two hours to find the gorilla group deep in the jungle. The trek would be mildly difficult, and everyone has to be just fit and fine. You would say that if you are in at least decent shape and health a gorilla trek in Uganda will prove enjoyable.

Even though the DRC is the cheapest country in the world to see mountain gorillas in the wild, it’s not a budget destination by any definition of the word. Permits are $400 (they’re $600 in Uganda and $1500 in Rwanda) and for that price, you’ll be allowed to spend one hour with the gorillas.

On top of that, you’ll need to take into account your visa for the DRC, which Virunga National Park takes care of and is priced at $105. On top of that you’ll potentially need to pay for accommodation in the DRC on either side of your trek. I paid $130 to stay at the excellent Lac Kivu Lodge (prices start at $75 a night for a basic room) before the trek and $316 to stay at Mikeno Lodge the night afterwards.

Rather than staying in the best guesthouse in Goma, you could opt to spend the previous night in a more inexpensive guesthouse in the city. Hotel La Versailles Goma is $40 a night for a double room and receives decent enough reviews. If all you want to do in the DRC is trek with the gorillas, you don’t need to spend the night in the DRC after your hike — instead you can arrange for the park to pick you up afterwards and take you straight back to the Rwanda border, where accommodation is inexpensive (in Gisenyi, rooms start from $11 a night).

Additionally, Virunga National Park drops the price of gorilla trek permits if you’re willing to go in the wet season. This year, between 15th March and the 15th May, the permits were half-price: just $200 each. If you’re on a tight budget and happy to risk potentially trekking in the rain (which totally happens in the dry season, too), this is absolutely the option for you.