The safari starts and ends in Kigali, upon arrival at Kigali International Airport, you will be warmly welcomed at arrivals by our representative and your driver guide. Here you will be briefed on your tour and then transferred to the DR Congo border and assisted to cross the border and transfer you to your accommodation. Arrival to your lodge freshens up. Dinner and overnight stay at your accommodation preference: Mikeno lodge
On the second day, after an early breakfast depart to the starting point for your gorilla trekking safari experience. After completing the park customs, we embark on a once in a life time experience of tracking mountain gorillas. These massive primates are extremely rare, with less than 800 living today. You will get within meters of the family, and be privileged to spend an hour amongst them. A visit with a mountain gorilla family is a life changing experience. Mountain gorillas are highly intelligent, good natured, and fascinating to observe.
The silver back’s powerful presence is awe-inspiring, yet his calm clearly earns him the title, “gentle giant”. People are equally struck by the tenderness and care that mothers show their young. And then, of course, there are the juveniles who spend most of every waking hour at play and never cease to make visitors smile. Dinner and overnight at your preferred accommodation: Mikeno lodge
On the third day, early breakfast eaten en-route this morning as you again head out to the park headquarters to start your briefing for your Chimpanzee Habituation Trek. Chimpanzees along with the Democratic Republic of Congo Bonobo are our closest genetic relatives and no doubt you’ll recognize a few traits. The local guides leave for the forest at 4.30am to locate the chimps while the other guests start tracking at 6.00am. Each chimpanzee group is limited to four people and just like the gorillas time spent with the chimps is limited to one hour. Booking for a chimp habituation experience is only done at Mikeno Lodge.
The number of tourists is limited to 4 people and time to spend with the chimpanzees is restricted to 3-4 hours for habituation. Any tourist/visitors who doesn’t feel well at the time of scheduled tracking, for example when you have a cold, fever, diarrhoea, or persistent sore throat, let us know in time your money will be refunded like the way we do it on the gorillas. Chimpanzees are extremely susceptible to human illnesses. Chimpanzees have died after being exposed to human respiratory viruses and other common ailments.
