rwanda & uganda: both sides of the virungas

Your odds are good, with the honest caveat that nobody can guarantee a sighting.

We put success on Uganda's gorilla treks at better than 95 per cent, and the reason is the trackers, who set out at first light for the nests the family slept in and send the rangers walking you up to the right place.

What is different at Mgahinga is that there is no second family to fall back on. Nyakagezi is the park's one habituated group, which is why the whole park issues only eight permits a day, and it is still a transboundary group, one that can range over the borders into Rwanda and Congo.

If a trek fails, the Authority's rules allow it to be rescheduled, and three nights at Mount Gahinga Lodge leave a spare morning for that. Once you reach the gorillas you have one hour with them.

The two parks share one chain of volcanoes, so the ground is much the same: bamboo, steep slopes, mud after rain and thin air.

In Mgahinga you set off at 8am from the Ntebeko visitor centre, at about 2,230 metres, and in Uganda tracking typically lasts three to five hours. With a single family there is no choosing a nearer group, so treat it as a proper mountain walk.

Over the border, Rwanda has twelve habituated families and allocates them at the 7am briefing at Kinigi with fitness in mind; treks there run from half an hour to four hours and more, at between about 2,500 and 4,000 metres.

Porters wait at both trailheads, and we would book one for every walker: they shoulder the bag and give you a hand on the worst of the mud. The minimum age is 15 in both countries. Anyone uneasy about the height should raise it with their own doctor first.

It is a livelier and lighter morning.

Golden monkeys live only in the bamboo forests of the Virunga volcanoes, and unlike gorillas they rarely sit still. We liken the experience to watching chimpanzees, because you may have to move quickly through the forest to keep up with the troop.

At Mgahinga the habituated troop numbers 80 to 100 animals and is tracked on the slopes of Mount Gahinga. Reaching its territory means a climb of an hour to an hour and a half through secondary forest, so it is harder work here than on the Rwandan side, where we rate the monkeys as the easier to reach and well used to cameras.

Mgahinga also offers a longer habituation visit, spent with the researchers who follow the monkeys through the day. It is not part of the sample days, so ask us about adding it.

By road, through the Cyanika border post, about 22 kilometres from Mount Gahinga Lodge.

We put the drive from Kigali at about four hours, including the time it takes to clear immigration, and the later leg from Mount Gahinga to Virunga Lodge at about two. The last 14 kilometres from Kisoro up to the park are rough and can take up to an hour on their own.

Because you enter Rwanda, cross into Uganda and then return to Rwanda, the visa to ask about is the East Africa Tourist Visa. Rwanda's immigration service and the UK Foreign Office both describe it as a joint visa for Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya that allows several entries while you stay inside those three countries.

As this trip starts in Kigali, it is applied for through Rwanda. Entry rules differ by passport and do change, so we send you the current requirements when you book.

June, July and August are the months that come out best on our own pages for every stop, when the trails on both sides of the volcanoes are at their firmest and the peaks are most often clear.

January, February and September come next, rated well for both gorilla parks with Kigali a little more showery.

The gorillas and golden monkeys live here all year, so the wetter months change the comfort of the walk and not your chances. December is good on the Ugandan side and more mixed in Rwanda. October is an in-between month of muddier trails.

March, April, May and November are the ones we rate lowest for Mgahinga, with heavy rain, mist and the hardest going.

They have real advantages all the same: permits are easier to find at short notice, which matters in a park with eight a day, lodges may discount, and flat, overcast light is kind to a dark-coated animal. Pack waterproofs whenever you go.

Yes. The route shown is a starting point, and we plan each trip around the people taking it.

From Virunga Lodge you are within reach of Volcanoes National Park, where Rwanda has twelve habituated families and 96 permits a day against Mgahinga's eight. If you want to track on the Rwandan side as well, that trek needs its own permit, so tell us early.

At Mgahinga, strong walkers can climb Mount Sabinyo, whose 3,669 metre summit stands in Uganda, Rwanda and Congo at once, with ladders on the steepest sections. The Batwa Trail, led by Batwa guides through the forest that was once their home, runs as a half or a full day.

If the drive back to Kigali does not appeal, a helicopter links the volcanoes with the city in about half an hour.

What cannot be moved is the Mgahinga permit date: with one family and eight places a day, we secure that first.