This Tanzanian and Ugandan luxury safari places you in the heart of the action for two very different, but equally remarkable, kinds of wildlife experiences. The intimacy of a mountain gorilla encounter in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is matched for impact only by seeing the
herds in Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Crater.
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Two nights at Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp
Having exchanged the bustling concrete jungle of Kampala (where we spent a relaxed night at a luxury lodge) for the real thing, we were keen to make inroads into the wonderfully named Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.
We were here primarily to see mountain gorilla of course, but we couldn’t fail to notice that the forest around us pulsed with life. On a short introductory forest walk near Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp, we gently brushed aside clouds of butterflies, and heard chimpanzee calling.
As night fell, we drank cocktails around a campfire on the vivid green lawns (everything in Bwindi is green; they have at least fifty shades) and talked gorilla.
Following our guide and tracker into the forest the next day (which happily was not quite as dense as its name suggests) we trekked steadily towards our great-ape rendezvous. En route, we enjoyed a refreshing pause at a waterfall, before the moment we’d been waiting for – our first contact with mountain gorilla.
As quietly as the local forest rodents, we crept to the edge of a clearing where an immense silverback sprawled, chewing, as fuzzy youngsters rolled around and swung from low branches. We felt an instant connection with our primate cousins, and our hour with them was both an eternity and a heartbeat.
Three nights at Sanctuary Kichakani
Serengeti Camp
Our combined land and air transfer to the Serengeti was broken by an overnight stop in Arusha – probably the best-connected safari town in Africa. Despite being in the middle of a coffee plantation, we had no problem falling asleep at all!
When we arrived at Sanctuary Kichakani Serengeti Camp, the manager explained to us that this luxury lodge has an especially light footprint – which is just as well, as it’s a mobile camp that follows the herds.
This time they had overtaken them, arriving in this corner of the Serengeti as the advance parties of the migration streamed in. Climbing a small, rocky kopje on an afternoon walking safari, we realised that what looked in the golden light like low clouds was actually the savannah dust stirred up by thousands of restless hooves as the ranks of wildebeest swelled by the hour.
Our guide joked that he’d ‘herd’ through
the grapevine that a river crossing was imminent, and so our morning game drive took us to a point where the river banks were lower, and less of an obstacle to the advancing Great Wildebeest Migration.
Dozens of antelope were already gathering, but seemed reluctant to enter the water.
OPPOSITE PAGE: A gorilla
mother cuddles her babe.
PHOTOGRAPHY: SHUTTERSTOCK
EAST AFRICAN
adventure
by Nick Galpine