Chimpanzee trekking in Kibale forest offers the best views of the endangered primates. Kibale National Park is located in Kabarole district in south western Uganda. It is mainly known for chimpanzee trekking and chimpanzee habituation. The youngest king of Uganda also resides in Kabarole district. The Omugabe king Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru is the current king of Tooro kingdom. As a tourist, during your visit in Uganda you can also tour the palace of Tooro kingdom since the land is blessed with a strong cultural heritage.
This is one of the best forests in Uganda where tourists can find these wild primates. Actually, it has been ranked as one of the most travelled destinations for chimpanzee trekking. Chimpanzee trekking is the second carried out activity in Uganda after the mountain gorillas in the dense tropical forests by tourists.
The park hosts 13 species of primates and among these include the endangered chimpanzees. These chimpanzees have undertaken the habituation process, this means training a chimpanzee to get used to the human presence so that they can be visited by tourists. However even after the habituation process, tourists always carry out the trekking in the forests with the help of the park rangers for safety purposes.
Kibale National Park has about 1500 chimpanzees and only 120 habituated are ready for trekking by visitors. However due to their big numbers in the park, these chimpanzees are easily located. The trekking is carried out twice in a day that is to say in the morning and in the afternoon. Besides chimpanzee trekking as the main activity in Kibale, the park also has different types of monkeys that is the colobus monkeys and red -tailed monkeys. The tourists also have an opportunity to carry out bird watching in the park as the park hosts 400 bird species.
Chimpanzee trekking in Uganda involves navigating through the rain forests in search for them. This takes 2-5 hours depending on the location of the endangered primates and on finding them the tourists are limited to spend with the chimpanzees only one hour. This is because chimpanzees are related to humans however the fact that they are wild animals should not be forgotten since spending too much time with can make chimpanzees feel threatened.
Kibale National Park covers an area of 795 square km, standing 1590m above sea level with the lowest point of 1,100m on the floor of Albertine Rift valley of the south. The park also hosts 351 species of trees which makes a forest cover of interspersed grasslands and swamps which dominate the northern and central parts of the park.
In summary Kibale National Park is mainly for chimpanzee trekking however there are other parks that conduct chimpanzee trekking in Uganda for example Budongo forest in Murchison falls, Bigodi wetland sanctuary and Ngamba island chimpanzee sanctuary. All these places in Uganda offer the best chimpanzee trekking experience. We recommend you book your wildlife safari with Ganyana Safaris for a memorable trip.
