The Fabulous Mountain Gorillas

The experience of seeing the magnificent beast called the silverback gorilla is priceless. The best place to do that is the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there are now 340 mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, which is home to nearly half the world's mountain gorillas. Bwindi is now the most popular park for gorilla tourism. The easiest way to visit Uganda's mountain gorillas is to go with an organized tour group. Abercrombie and Kent offers trips departing from Entebbe that include two days of gorilla tracking at Bwindi. 8-12 months are recommended in advance due to the limited number of tracking permits available. Roundtrip tickets from New York to Entebbe on British Air start at approximately $1,800.

Transportation from Kampala to Bwindi Park can be difficult, so allow for two full days on the road before the date of your tracking permit. Four-wheel drive rental cars are available in Kampala, or catch one of the buses departing from the main bus station at 8 a.m. daily for the 8-12 hour ride to the town of Butagota, ten miles from the park. From Butagota it is a 4-hour hike to the park entrance at Buhoma, where accommodations and camping are available. Private cars can sometimes be hired from Butagota for $15-$25. Be prepared to bargain.