Why should I trek gorillas twice? – Some travellers who come to Uganda and Rwanda tend to seek more time with the Mountain Gorillas in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and Mgahinga Gorilla National Parks or the Volcanoes National Park of Rwanda. Before we go through the core reasons of tracking the Mountain Gorillas twice, out of experience from our safari team that tracked mountain gorillas twice in Bwindi forest, this blog is a handy guide on why you should trek gorillas twice.
You should always start planning the Africa safari holidays in advance enough and this must include a Gorilla tracking adventure on the itinerary and always seek the best of its experience. Please note Since Gorilla tracking is a bit expensive – also far away in Africa, you should try to make sure that you rather spend more time and do this activity once and forever to make it a life time experience.
Other travellers trek Mountain Gorillas twice just because they feel that they could miss them out of the first trek and as such they book a second trek so that they can try again. In Uganda and Rwanda, Gorilla tracking is well organised in that chances of seeing them in the wild are 98% and this means that even if you book one trek or two, chances of seeing these endangered apes are very high.
The reason why you should trek the Mountain Gorillas twice is that you get a chance to spend more time with these giants. The first trek gives you the first opportunity and it quenches the curiosity. The second trek is when you are perfect and you can take that nice photo of a life time experience because now you know what to do and still it is a different experience as you are allowed to show all the interests, you trek a different gorilla family with different number of member, so have it in mind that this is the day you make a life time experience and amazing safari in the wild. In other words, you get two hours with the Mountain Gorillas on your two treks and you compare each from the other. With one Gorilla trek, one does not have that opportunity and you will only have a one hour experience for the one day.
Another reason is that if you don’t get exactly what you want on the first trek, you can try on the second trek. This is an advantage to those that have booked two treks. At Great Adventure Safaris, we do not have any problems with you booking two Gorilla treks and if you contact us for that, we will check availability of Gorilla permits and book it for you so that you enjoy the advantage of tracking the Mountain Gorillas twice. Travellers who want to spend more hours with the Mountain Gorillas on one trek, we recommend Gorilla habituation experience which gives you four hours once you meet the fresh trails of the Gorillas from where they nested the previous night.
The best time to visit Uganda for Gorilla tracking is during its two dry seasons: between December and February, and between June and mid-September, when conditions are particularly good for trekking to see Mountain Gorillas and the Chimpanzees.
Game spotting in National Parks is also good at this time, as well as between February and March. Large numbers of wildlife can be seen at waterholes from September through to early October.
Temperatures barely change throughout the seasons, sitting around 24°C-30°C, so you can visit Uganda all year round. The country is also fabulous for bird spotting at any time of year.