Day 4: Kibale to Queen Elizabeth National Park — The Rift Valley Opens

A relaxed morning at the lodge — perhaps a final birding walk in the forest grounds or a visit to the nearby crater lakes — before the afternoon drive south to Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda's most visited protected area and one of the most ecologically diverse parks in Africa.

The drive passes through the spectacular crater lake district near Fort Portal — ancient volcanic calderas filled with shimmering water and surrounded by community farmland and papyrus — before descending toward the Albertine Rift Valley floor where Queen Elizabeth's vast savannah, wetland, and forest habitats spread across the landscape in every direction.

Arriving in the park in the late afternoon, an evening game drive on the Kasenyi Plains introduces the open-country wildlife: Uganda kob in enormous herds across the short-grass savannah, warthogs, elephants, buffalo, and the possibility of lions in the acacia and euphorbia woodland. The 600+ bird species of Queen Elizabeth make every game drive an outstanding birding experience — grey crowned cranes, lilac-breasted rollers, and African fish eagles are all commonly observed in the extraordinary late afternoon light.

Highlights: Crater lakes scenic stop, arrival at Queen Elizabeth NP, evening game drive Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: Luxury: Mweya Safari Lodge | Midrange: Marafiki Lodge | Budget: Bush Lodge

Day 5: Queen Elizabeth — Kazinga Channel & Ishasha Sector

A dawn game drive on the Kasenyi Plains — the most productive time for predator activity in Queen Elizabeth — followed by the park's most celebrated wildlife experience: the Kazinga Channel boat cruise.

The Kazinga Channel connects Lakes George and Edward across 32 kilometres of permanently waterway that supports one of the largest hippopotamus concentrations in Uganda — several hundred individuals typically visible at close range from the boat, their social interactions, territorial disputes, and endlessly entertaining behaviour providing continuous wildlife drama. Nile crocodiles bask on every exposed bank. Elephants wade to drink and bathe. Goliath herons, African fish eagles, pied and malachite kingfishers, and pink-backed pelicans line the channel banks in extraordinary concentration.

In the afternoon, drive through the Ishasha sector — the remote southern extension of Queen Elizabeth famous for its tree-climbing lions — en route to Bwindi. The Ishasha's ancient fig and acacia trees regularly shelter resting lion prides draped languidly across their branches, a behaviour found in only two locations worldwide. Continue to your Bwindi lodge, arriving in time for dinner and the gorilla trek briefing.

Highlights: Dawn game drive, Kazinga Channel cruise, Ishasha tree-climbing lions, gorilla trek briefing Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: Luxury: Buhoma Lodge / Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp | Midrange: The Haven Lodge / Mahogany Springs | Budget: Buhoma Community Lodge

 

Day 6: Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest

There are mornings in travel that divide your life into before and after. This is one of them.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park — a UNESCO World Heritage Site protecting over 400 individual mountain gorillas, approximately half of the entire global wild population of this critically endangered subspecies — is the setting for today's experience. After an early breakfast and the drive to the park briefing point, Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers assign your group to a habituated gorilla family and lead you into the forest.

The trek through Bwindi's dense, ancient, tangled interior is demanding — steep volcanic slopes, thick undergrowth, muddy trails — and extraordinary. The forest itself is a wildlife destination of the highest order: over 1,000 flowering plant species, 120 mammal species, and 348 bird species including numerous Albertine Rift endemics. Porter hire is available and strongly recommended for challenging sections.

When the rangers signal that the gorilla family is ahead, everything changes.

The one hour with the gorillas — a silverback observing your group with quiet, absolute authority; juveniles tumbling and playing in the branches above; a mother cradling an infant with extraordinary tenderness; the sounds of the family moving through the vegetation at close range — is an experience of such profound emotional resonance that virtually every visitor describes it as the single greatest wildlife encounter of their lives.

Highlights: Mountain gorilla trekking, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, one hour with the gorilla family Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: As Day 5

Day 7: Bwindi to Lake Bunyonyi — Rest, Reflection & Beauty

After the intensity of gorilla trekking, today offers a gentle and deliberate transition to one of Uganda's most serene and beautiful destinations: Lake Bunyonyi — the country's deepest lake, dotted with 29 named islands and surrounded by the impossibly steep terraced hillsides of the Kigezi highlands.

The short drive from Bwindi to Lake Bunyonyi takes approximately 1.5 to 2 hours through landscape of extraordinary beauty — the Kigezi highlands' dramatic terraced valleys, known as the Switzerland of Africa, providing one of Uganda's most scenic road journeys.

Arriving at the lake, this day is entirely yours. A traditional dugout canoe paddle across the glassy morning water, a boat cruise visiting the lake's islands — each with its own history and legend — a village walk through the Bakiga communities on the lakeshore, or simply finding a hammock and allowing the extraordinary stillness of this landscape to restore you. Tonight, sleep well. Tomorrow the adventure continues to Kenya.

Highlights: Lake Bunyonyi arrival, island boat cruise, canoe paddle, complete relaxation Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: Luxury: Arcadia Cottages | Midrange: Birdnest at Bunyonyi | Budget: Bunyonyi Overland Resort

Day 8: Lake Bunyonyi to Nairobi — The Journey Between Two Worlds

Today crosses an international boundary and transitions the safari from Uganda's ancient forest world to Kenya's open savannah country — a journey between two of East Africa's most compelling wildlife destinations.

After breakfast at the lake, your driver transfers you south to Kabale for the drive to Kampala and onward to Entebbe International Airport for your afternoon flight to Nairobi (approximately 1.5 hours). Alternatively, for itineraries using the road route, the journey crosses the Ugandan-Kenyan border at Busia or Malaba on a scenic drive that passes through the sugarcane and tea country of western Kenya before arriving in Nairobi in the evening.

On arrival in Nairobi, your Ntungo Wildlife Safaris Kenya representative meets you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport or Wilson Airport and transfers you to your accommodation in the city's upmarket Karen or Westlands districts — a comfortable night's rest before tomorrow's onward journey to the Mara.

Highlights: Entebbe departure, Nairobi arrival, transition from Uganda to Kenya Meal Plan: Breakfast, Dinner Accommodation: Luxury: Giraffe Manor / The Norfolk | Midrange: Nairobi Serena Hotel | Budget: Nairobi Urban Hotel

Day 9: Nairobi to Masai Mara — Into the Kingdom of Lions

This morning, your Ntungo guide transfers you to Wilson Airport — Nairobi's domestic aviation hub — for the 45-minute flight to one of the Masai Mara's several airstrips: Ol Kiombo, Keekorok, Mara North, or another, depending on your chosen camp.

The flight itself is a magnificent introduction — the aircraft climbing above Nairobi's urban sprawl and banking southwest over the Great Rift Valley, the escarpment visible below as a dramatic geological boundary between the highland plateau and the valley floor. As the Mara approaches, the open savannah of the Masai Mara National Reserve spreads below the aircraft in the classic landscape of the African imagination: golden grass, scattered acacia, the glint of the Mara River, and in every direction, the movement of animals.

On arrival at your camp, settle in and depart immediately for an afternoon game drive — the Mara's light in the late afternoon turning the savannah gold, the wildlife most active in the cooling hours before sunset. Uganda kob give way to wildebeest and zebra in their thousands. The lions of the Mara's famous prides are often visible in the open grassland. And if the timing is right — if the herds are pressing northward in the July to October window — the Mara River may be building toward one of its famous crossings.

Highlights: Nairobi to Mara flight, first Masai Mara game drive, wildebeest herds Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: Luxury: Angama Mara / Mahali Mzuri | Midrange: Mara Intrepids / Fig Tree Camp | Budget: Mara Explorers Camp

Day 10: Full Day in the Masai Mara — The Migration at Full Intensity

A full, uninterrupted day in the Masai Mara — one of the great privileges of the natural world.

Rise before dawn for the most productive game drive of the safari — the transition between the nocturnal and diurnal worlds, when the Mara's lions are still active from the night's hunting, cheetahs are beginning their morning scans of the open plains, and the quality of the light is extraordinary. Your guide navigates the reserve's network of tracks with expert knowledge of the current pride territories, the cheetah coalitions' recent movements, and the migration herds' latest position.

The Great Wildebeest Migration — the annual movement of over 1.5 million wildebeest and 400,000 zebra around the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem — is present in the Masai Mara in different forms throughout the year, but between July and October the herds are in the northern Mara and the Mara River crossings are at their most frequent and most dramatic. Your guide positions the vehicle at the most productive crossing points — using local ranger intelligence and knowledge of the herd's current position — for the best possible chance of witnessing the crossing in its full, extraordinary drama.

Crossings aside, the Mara's wildlife richness is extraordinary in every direction: cheetah coalitions hunting in the open grassland in explosive, visible pursuits, leopards resting in riverine fig trees along the Talek River, elephants moving in family groups through the acacia woodland, and the constant backdrop of wildebeest, zebra, topi, impala, and the full community of East African savannah wildlife in a landscape of classic, cinematic beauty.

The afternoon game drive continues the day's extraordinary wildlife experience, ending as the sun sets over the Siria Escarpment and the savannah turns from gold to deep amber in the most beautiful light of the day.

Highlights: Dawn game drive, Mara River crossing attempt, cheetah hunt, full day Big Five Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: As Day 9

Day 11: Masai Mara — Balloon Safari, Conservancy & Maasai Culture

The penultimate day of your 12-day Uganda Kenya safari offers three of the Masai Mara's most distinctive and most memorable experiences — arranged to fill a day of extraordinary variety and depth.

The day begins before dawn with the hot air balloon safari — one of East Africa's most iconic experiences, and one that provides a perspective on the Mara ecosystem available in no other way. Rising silently above the plains as the first light touches the horizon, the vast savannah spreading below in every direction, the wildebeest herds moving in their morning patterns far beneath the basket — this is the Masai Mara from above, and it is magnificent.

The balloon flight typically lasts 60 to 90 minutes before landing in the open grassland for the famous champagne bush breakfast — one of the most civilised and most perfectly situated meals in Africa, served with silver cutlery on linen tablecloths in the middle of the savannah with wildlife grazing peacefully in every direction.

The morning game drive following the balloon breakfast ventures into one of the private conservancies adjoining the national reserve — Naboisho, Olare Motorogi, or Mara North depending on your camp's location — where off-road driving, night drives, and the extraordinary quality of exclusive, low-density wildlife experience available in the conservancy system delivers encounters impossible within the national reserve itself.

The afternoon is dedicated to a Maasai community visit — one of East Africa's most genuine and most rewarding cultural experiences. The Maasai manyatta (traditional village enclosure), the adumu jumping ceremony, the extraordinary ecological knowledge of a pastoral people who have coexisted with the Mara's lions and elephants for centuries, and the warmth of a community that has maintained its cultural identity through extraordinary historical pressure — all of this adds a human dimension to the safari that deepens every wildlife encounter you have had in this landscape.

Highlights: Hot air balloon safari, champagne bush breakfast, conservancy game drive, Maasai cultural visit Meal Plan: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner Accommodation: As Day 9

Day 12: Final Masai Mara Game Drive & Nairobi Departure

Your final morning in the Masai Mara — and the Mara, as always, delivers something to send you home with.

A last dawn game drive in the golden morning light — one final pass through the kopjes, one last look at the lion prides on the open grassland, one more chance to find the leopard in the riverine fig trees — before returning to camp for a farewell breakfast and the transfer to the airstrip.

The 45-minute flight back to Nairobi carries you above the Rift Valley for the last time — the Mara visible below as the aircraft banks eastward, the savannah's golden expanse already receding, already becoming memory.

On arrival at Wilson Airport, your Ntungo representative transfers you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your international departure — with twelve days of experiences that span the full spectrum of East Africa's most extraordinary wildlife and most compelling landscapes, from the ancient forests of Uganda to the golden plains of Kenya, from the world's rarest great ape to the world's greatest wildlife migration.

You leave different from how you arrived. That is exactly as it should be.

Highlights: Final Mara game drive, Nairobi transfer, international departure Meal Plan: Breakfast Accommodation: N/A (departure day)

Safari Inclusions

• • All airport transfers and ground transportation in private 4WD safari vehicles

• • Professional English-speaking private driver-guide throughout Uganda

• • Expert Masai Mara guide throughout Kenya

• • All accommodation on full-board basis as per meal plan

• • Mountain gorilla trekking permit (Bwindi Impenetrable Forest)

• • Chimpanzee tracking permit (Kibale National Park)

• • Kazinga Channel boat cruise (Queen Elizabeth NP)

• • Nairobi to Masai Mara return light aircraft flights

• • Hot air balloon safari over the Masai Mara (Luxury tier)

• • All national park and conservancy entrance fees Uganda and Kenya

• • Bottled water throughout

What's Not Included

• • International flights to Entebbe and from Nairobi

• • Uganda and Kenya visa fees

• • Travel insurance (strongly recommended)

• • Hot air balloon safari (Midrange tier — available at supplement)

• • Tips and gratuities for guides, rangers, porters, and lodge staff

• • Personal expenditure and bar bills

Pricing

Midrange: From USD 6,500 per person (gorilla permit, chimp permit, all park fees, Mara flights included)

Luxury: From USD 12,500 per person (all inclusions above plus balloon safari, conservancy fees, and premium lodge accommodation throughout)

Practical Information

Best Time for the Complete Experience: The itinerary operates year-round, but the July to October window combines the Mara River crossing season with excellent dry-season wildlife viewing across Uganda — the most comprehensive and most spectacular version of the safari. January to March offers the Serengeti calving season's energy in Kenya combined with Uganda's lush green season.

Gorilla and Chimpanzee Permits: Both permits must be booked well in advance — minimum 3 months, 6 months recommended for peak season dates. Both are included in the package price.

Fitness: Gorilla trekking involves hiking in steep, dense forest terrain. A moderate level of fitness is recommended. Porter hire is available at Bwindi trailhead.

Luggage: A soft-sided bag of maximum 15kg is required for the Mara light aircraft transfer. Hard suitcases can be stored at your Nairobi hotel.

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Contact Ntungo Wildlife Safaris to book your 12-day Uganda Kenya safari. We manage all permits, flights, accommodation, and logistics — ensuring a seamlessly connected experience from Entebbe arrival to Nairobi departure.

📩 info@ntungosafaris.com 🌐 www.ntungosafaris.com 📞 +256 771 399299 / +256 706 772990 771 399299 / +256 706 772990