uganda: gorilla & chimp safari

Very likely for all three, although wild animals keep no appointments and Uganda's park authorities make no promises.

Kibale is a dependable chimpanzee forest: we put the chance of locating the habituated community there at over 90 per cent. We put gorilla tracking at better than 95 per cent successful, because trackers are out at dawn picking each family up from its overnight nests, so the rangers know where to aim before you set off.

This route also has a safeguard built in. It tracks gorillas in two separate parks, Bwindi and Mgahinga, so the trip never hangs on one family or one morning.

Golden monkeys are a different case: the troop at Mgahinga is habituated and keeps to the bamboo where it feeds. In each case the visit is capped at an hour from the moment the animals are reached.

Nkuringo is the most demanding of Bwindi's trailheads, and the reason is its shape.

The trailhead stands on top of the Nteko ridge, at about 2,000 metres, and the gorillas live in the forest below, so the day usually starts with a long, steep descent and ends with the climb back out, when you are most tired.

Treks in Bwindi run from a couple of hours to most of a day, and nobody knows which until the morning. Mgahinga starts higher, at 2,227 metres at the Ntebeko gate, but treks there are typically three to five hours, much of it through bamboo and across open volcanic slopes.

Neither park asks for athletic fitness. Both ask for several hours on your feet on steep, slippery ground.

Walking sticks are handed out, porters from the nearby villages can be hired on the morning to carry a bag and lend a hand, and trekkers must be 15 or over.

It is a reason to book early more than a reason to worry.

Mgahinga has a single habituated family, the Nyakagezi group, and the Wildlife Authority issues about eight permits a day for it, against well over a hundred across Bwindi, so one small party can fill the park.

The family also has a history of wandering. It crossed into Rwanda in June 2006 and did not return until July 2007, and its movements were erratic. It has kept to the Ugandan slopes for more than a decade since, but that history is one more argument for a route that treks in Bwindi too.

What Mgahinga adds is a different setting: bamboo and open ground below three Virunga volcanoes in place of dense rainforest, far fewer people, and golden monkeys in the same park.

Permits are issued for a named park on a named day, so we book them first and build the trip around those dates.

Shorter and lighter than a gorilla trek, and a good contrast to one.

Golden monkeys live almost nowhere outside the bamboo forests of the Virunga volcanoes. At Mgahinga a habituated troop is tracked on the slopes of Mount Gahinga, setting out from the same Ntebeko gate as the gorilla trek, a short walk from the lodge.

Expect a steady uphill walk of an hour to an hour and a half through regenerating forest to reach their territory, then one hour with them, the same limit as for gorillas. They are small, quick and sociable, and you watch them play, squabble and strip fresh bamboo shoots.

If an hour sounds short, ask us about adding the habituation experience, which is particular to Mgahinga and lets you spend several hours with the troop alongside the researchers who study it. With three nights at the park there is room for the gorillas and the monkeys on separate mornings.

None of the three primates goes anywhere with the weather, so timing this route is about how firm the ground is, not whether the animals are there.

June, July, August, December, January and February are our recommended months at all three forests, with the firmest trails on the Nkuringo ridge and the clearest views of the Virunga volcanoes from Mgahinga.

September is nearly as settled in the two gorilla parks, though Kibale is turning wetter by then, and October turns the paths muddy.

The rains fall from March to May and again in November, and on gradients like Nkuringo's that means slow, slippery going; we rate April and November as challenging at every stop on this route.

The rains have real compensations all the same. Permits are easier to find at short notice, lodge rates come down, the forest is lush and the birding good, and cloud cover gives soft, even light on dark fur where hard sun through the canopy does not.

Pack waterproofs and proper boots whatever the month.

You travel by road, and two of the days are long:

• Entebbe to Kibale is tarmac all the way and takes six to seven hours with a stop for lunch
• Kibale to the Nkuringo ridge is the longest, a full day's drive south finishing on winding mountain dirt roads where we recommend a 4x4
• Nkuringo to Mgahinga is short by comparison, down to Kisoro and then a rough, steep 14 kilometres up to the park gate

From Mgahinga there are two ways home. Kisoro has scheduled morning flights to Entebbe in an 11-seat Cessna Grand Caravan, a little over an hour when direct and up to three when the aircraft calls at other airstrips, with 15 kilograms of luggage allowed in soft bags. Or Kigali is about four hours by road through the Cyanika border post.

If the long middle day does not appeal, we can break it with a night in Queen Elizabeth National Park, or arrange a private charter, typically a Cessna Caravan, from Kasese to Kisoro.