One of Africa's oldest montane rainforests, old enough to have survived the last ice age, which is why it holds thirteen primate species and around 300 birds including numerous Albertine Rift endemics. The canopy walkway runs 70m above the forest floor on a suspension bridge — the only one of its kind in East Africa. Chimpanzee tracking and enormous troops of Angolan colobus are the other draws.
The canopy walk is exhilarating and the forest below is genuinely ancient. Colobus troops in the hundreds.
Chimp tracking here is harder work than Kibale but the forest is spectacular and empty of people.
Superb birding for Albertine endemics. Combines perfectly with Lake Kivu afterwards.
Uganda2 daysThe finest place in Africa to track chimpanzees, with roughly 1,500 living under a tall, humid canopy alongside twelve other primate species — red colobus, L'Hoest's monkey, grey-cheeked mangabey. You hear the community long before you see it: a pant-hoot chorus that moves through the trees. Trackers position you beneath a feeding group and you spend an hour watching them groom, argue and travel overhead.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews
Rwanda3 daysThe Rwandan flank of the Virungas, where Dian Fossey did her work and where mountain gorilla tourism was effectively invented. Treks are shorter and better organised than Bwindi's, on bamboo slopes beneath a chain of volcanoes, and the park is a two-hour drive from Kigali. Permits are the most expensive in the region by design — the price is the conservation model, and it has worked.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews
Rwanda3 daysOne of Africa's Great Lakes, filling a Rift Valley trough between Rwanda and the DRC, with no crocodile or hippo and safe, swimmable water. The lakeside towns of Gisenyi, Kibuye and Rusizi are strung together by the Congo Nile Trail, which runs 227km along the shore and can be walked, ridden or dipped into for a day. Island-hopping boat trips leave from Kibuye.
Rated 4.7 out of 5 from 3 reviews