House of Nomad

Trekking with the silverback gorillas in Uganda was a long time bucket list trip for my husband Diek and I. After what felt like over a year of planning, the wait became even longer when COVID hit. This was a trip we talked about almost every day through COVID - what was already a dream for us became even more so. When we heard rumors of borders open, we would get glimmers of hope just for them to close again. We stayed mostly positive, and this trip became even that much more special when we were able to hop on that flight and fly the 40 hours across the world. This trip was over 3 years in the making, and it truly exceeded any and all expectations.

Below I am going to share the trip breakdown with you. If Uganda, the Mara or Zanzibar are on your bucket list, I’m hoping this will help guide you. We have been lucky enough to travel to the continent several times and were able to plan this particular trip on our own with help from a friend that has a camp in the Mara (mentioned more below). It is doable to do this on your own, but for your first time to Africa I highly recommend a travel agent. The flight scheduling and coordinating getting around can be intimidating along with general direction on accommodations. Check out this travel agency I would highly recommend!

You need to plan in advance for this - permits can be difficult to come by at times and this dictated the timing of really all moving parts for the trip as a whole. Permits have to be secured by a tour company. We used The Uganda Safari Company. They handled all transfers in and to airports, secured the permits and handled all transportation for the entire stay in Uganda - including our COVID test. Where you stay for the trek is ultimately decided based on the airstip schedule more or less. If there is a particular place you want to stay, you typically need to factor in some extra time for this. We didn't have tons of time, so we stayed where was most convenient. It happened to be an amazing place which I would highly recommend - The Buhoma Lodge. 

Trek with gorillas! Honestly one of the absolute coolest things I have ever done. You can select how long/high up you go, and then you are put in groups of about 8. We selected the longest/highest trek which had some strenuous sections, but took us to the Mubare group - the largest and oldest silverback Maraya is part of this group. 

You are pretty much guaranteed gorilla sightings - we were lucky enough to see two separate groups on our trek - over 30 gorillas! They are constantly monitored by the rangers that track their whereabouts. When you see the gorillas, you are allowed one hour with them and then you hike back. 

More info can be found here about Bwindi and the gorillas!

You need to plan in advance for this - permits can be difficult to come by at times and this dictated the timing of really all moving parts for the trip as a whole. Permits have to be secured by a tour company. We used The Uganda Safari Company. They handled all transfers in and to airports, secured the permits and handled all transportation for the entire stay in Uganda - including our COVID test. Where you stay for the trek is ultimately decided based on the airstip schedule more or less. If there is a particular place you want to stay, you typically need to factor in some extra time for this. We didn't have tons of time, so we stayed where was most convenient. It happened to be an amazing place which I would highly recommend - The Buhoma Lodge. 

For more details on the Masai Mara and where we stayed read this blog post from our last trip back in 2018!

The Mara is one of my most favorite places in the world, and Enkewa Camp is pure perfection. What I can add to the last post I wrote is that they now have great internet service (not that you really want it) but it’s nice to have for photo sharing and editing, plus having the connection to home as needed is always nice. What I love is that it's a very small, intimate and casual camp. It's no fuss. Almost all of the staff have been on the camp since opening, and pretty much everyone we met previously still worked there. It is truly a family and Jose (the owner) has created a community that I continue to be in awe of. The food is incredible - which logistically is crazy to think of when you are out in the middle of nowhere with food that rivals what you would eat in the likes of Europe. The tents are very comfortable and stylish, and the bonfires at the end of the night post the night game drive always rank high for us. 

Our tracker, Rarin, brought us to his village to meet his family and learn more about the Masai culture, which we really loved. If you stay long enough you are able to see more of the Masai culture (mentioned in my previous post), and they are able to arrange for you to visit the market, a local school, etc. 

My favorite thing about going back to the same camp again is that after visiting 3 years earlier, we were able to catch up with the same Black Rock Pride of lion and see them all grown up from being cubs and were able to find the coalition of cheetah we had seen previously as well. We also were lucky enough to see a crossing! I highly recommend this time of the year! I really could not recommend Enkewa Camp more.

From the Mara we traveled to Zanzibar. High on the list for us and my first time. We opted to stay on the coast and not in Stone Village. However, if I was to do it again I would recommend saying in both places, since they are completely different experiences.