Kampala / Entebbe → Kibale Forest

Your driver-guide picks you up from your Kampala hotel or Entebbe airport in the morning and heads west on the Fort Portal highway. Stop at the Equator monument near Kayabwe to stand on both hemispheres and watch the water-draining demonstration. After lunch the road climbs towards Fort Portal, and the Rwenzori ridges appear on the horizon.

You reach your lodge near Kibale in the early afternoon. Take a short guided walk along the forest edge to see red-tailed monkeys, black-and-white colobus and birds. Over dinner, your guide briefs you on tomorrow's chimp tracking.

• Equator stop at Kayabwe
• Guided forest-edge walk
• Tracking briefing over dinner

Chimpanzee Tracking & Bigodi Wetland Walk

After an early breakfast, join the 7:30 am ranger briefing at Kanyanchu Visitor Centre. Groups of up to 8 are assigned to a habituated community. Finding the chimps can take 30 minutes to 2 hours. Then you watch them for up to an hour as they swing through the canopy, groom each other and squabble over fruit. You may also hear them drumming on tree buttresses.

Eat a packed lunch at the forest edge. In the afternoon, take a 2-hour guided walk through Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary, a papyrus swamp that is excellent for birds and for grey-cheeked mangabeys and L'Hoest's monkeys. The community runs it and the entry fees go to the surrounding villages.

• Chimpanzee tracking with ranger guides
• Packed lunch at the forest edge
• Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary walk

Kibale → Queen Elizabeth NP → Bwindi

After breakfast, drive south through the Fort Portal crater lakes, dozens of round volcanic lakes set among tea estates. Stop at the Kyaninga or Nyinambuga viewpoint for photos. The road then drops into the Rift Valley and Queen Elizabeth National Park, where elephants and buffalo often stand beside the road. Lunch is at Mweya, overlooking the Kazinga Channel.

Continue south to the Ishasha sector and drive slowly past the fig trees where the park's tree-climbing lions rest. Then the road climbs into the Kigezi highlands, past terraced Bakiga farms to the edge of Bwindi forest. You reach your lodge in the early evening. After dinner, your guide briefs you on gorilla trekking: the 7-metre distance rule, what to wear and carry, and how the trek works.

• Fort Portal crater lake viewpoints
• Lunch at Mweya above the Kazinga Channel
• Ishasha tree-climbing lions and gorilla trekking briefing

Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi

Have breakfast early and check your kit: long sleeves, waterproof boots, a rain jacket, 2 litres of water and your camera. At the Uganda Wildlife Authority briefing, rangers assign you to a gorilla family. Your porter is included, and the terrain is steep, so you'll be glad of the help.

The trek winds through dense forest, over mossy log bridges and up ferny slopes, while your lead ranger stays in radio contact with the trackers. It can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 6 hours, depending on where the family spent the night. Then you get one hour with them: mothers holding tiny infants, juveniles tumbling down the slopes and the silverback moving through his forest. Each trekker receives an official gorilla trekking certificate.

In the late afternoon you can join the optional Batwa Cultural Trail (extra cost) to learn fire-making and medicinal plants from Bwindi's original people. Dinner and overnight at the lodge.

• Gorilla trek with a porter
• One hour with a habituated gorilla family
• Optional Batwa Cultural Trail (extra cost)

Bakiga Community Walk → Kampala / Entebbe

After breakfast, spend the morning in a nearby Bakiga village. Watch women weave papyrus baskets, see how omuramba (banana beer) is brewed, and enjoy the energetic Ekizino dance. Entry fees stay in the community, and it's the best place to buy baskets and beadwork directly from the makers.

Then check out and drive north through the Kigezi highlands, with lunch in Mbarara. Your guide drops you at your Kampala hotel or Entebbe airport in the early evening.

• Basket weaving, banana beer and Ekizino dance
• Lunch stop in Mbarara
• Drop-off at your hotel or Entebbe airport