rwanda, uganda & kenya: gorillas to samburu

This is the longest travelling day of the trip, so it is worth knowing how it works.

There are two ways out of Mgahinga. One is back by road through the Cyanika border to Kigali, about four hours including immigration, for a scheduled flight to Nairobi. The other is the daily light aircraft service from Kisoro airfield, below the park, to Entebbe, and an international flight to Nairobi from there.

Either way you land at Nairobi's main international airport, while safari flights to the Mara leave from Wilson Airport across the city, typically in a Cessna Caravan with a luggage limit of 15 kilograms in soft bags, hand luggage included.

Which combination works depends on the timetables for your dates, so we confirm the flights when we plan the trip. If the connections are tight, we would rather add a night in Nairobi than risk a missed flight.

Possibly not.

The East Africa Tourist Visa was created for this combination: Rwanda's and Uganda's immigration services describe it as a joint tourist visa for Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya and nowhere else, and the UK Foreign Office says it allows multiple entries into the three over 90 days.

It stays valid only while you remain inside those countries, which is no obstacle on this route. If you arrange it before you travel, Rwanda's rules say your first entry must be through the country you applied to. This trip starts in Kigali, so you would apply through Rwanda.

One caution: Kenya has since moved visitors onto its own electronic travel authorisation, and its website does not yet spell out how the joint visa sits alongside it. We check the position for your passport before you apply, and send you the current rules when you book. Requirements vary by nationality and can change at short notice.

Mgahinga is Uganda's smallest national park, under 34 square kilometres on the Ugandan slopes of the Virunga volcanoes, and it is quiet for a plain reason: one habituated family, the Nyakagezi group, and so only eight tracking permits a day for the whole park.

Your chances are very good all the same. No sighting of a wild animal can be promised, but we put success on Uganda's gorilla treks at better than 95 per cent, because trackers locate the family at first light from the previous night's nests.

The day starts at 8am at the Ntebeko visitor centre and tracking typically lasts three to five hours, on steep ground above 2,200 metres, so come ready for a proper walk and hire a porter. The minimum age is 15.

The real risk is availability: with eight places a day, the permits are the first thing we secure.

Expect a forest, not a game drive on foot.

The Mathews Range is a chain of mountains about 150 kilometres long, rising to 2,688 metres, with juniper forest and giant cycads on its upper slopes. At Kitich the days are spent walking: single file on narrow forest paths, with short climbs and descents and rocky stream crossings, led by Samburu guides with an armed ranger.

Anyone comfortable on their feet for a few hours on uneven ground will manage. What you can count on is the small and the close: birds, butterflies, monkeys, fresh tracks and dung.

Elephant, buffalo and bushbuck come to drink at the river by camp, and walkers do meet elephants and other forest mammals, but this is thick cover seen from the ground, not open plains seen from a vehicle, so nobody can say what a given walk will produce. After the Mara's big cats, that change of pace is the reason to come.

The herds are in the wider Mara from about July to October, and their timing follows the rain, so it shifts from year to year.

Serian stands on Mara North, private conservancy land beside the national reserve, and the difference lies in the rules. No more than five vehicles may gather at a sighting in Mara North, and night drives, walking and driving off the tracks are allowed there but not inside the reserve. The big cats are resident, so those rules count in every month.

River crossings are another matter. Nobody can schedule one: herds may plunge in soon after arriving, wait for days or turn back, and a morning can pass on the bank with nothing happening.

If a crossing is your priority, travel in August or September, tell us, and we will plan full days at the river with your guide. In other months, come for the cats and the space.

July and August are the months we rate highest in all three countries: dry trails at Mgahinga, the migration in the Mara and firm tracks in the north. They are also the first to sell out.

September, January and February are close behind, with nothing worse than a few showers in Kigali, and we rate January and February as excellent for northern Kenya too.

June suits the gorillas and the Mathews Range, though it is an in-between month in the Mara, before the herds arrive. October is good in Kenya and showery on the gorilla side.

April is the month to avoid, rated challenging at every stop, and March, May and November bring heavy rain to Mgahinga's steep trails.

Those wet months have real upsides for some travellers:

• Gorilla permits are easier to find
• Prices are often lower
• The Mara is green with newborn animals and few vehicles
• Flat light flatters a gorilla's dark coat