Adventure Travel Company Brings Gorillas Up Close And Personal

by Chris Owen on


Adventure travel might include hiking or camping in the wilderness of America’s pacific northwest, backpacking through Europe or climbing a mountain in Tibet. On their own or with local guidance, adventure travelers often see places others only dream of. Not satisfied with a packaged tour, visiting the same places over and over again or waiting any longer for their dream to come true, they turn to travel companies who specialize in remote, rarely-visited locations.

Sanctuary Retreats is a travel company that knows something about adventure travel. On safari in Africa since 1999, they own and operate 11 lodges and camps in Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania. In Uganda, Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp is located in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a good base for a gorilla tracking experience the heart of the rainforest.Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is home to the Batwa Pygmy tribe and has more than 350 species of birds, 200 species of butterflies, rare forest elephants, giant forest hog, forest duiker antelope and bushbuck antelope. But it is the 11 kinds of primates, including red-tailed and blue monkeys, black and white colobus, baboons and chimpanzees, that draw adventure travelers to the Sanctuary Gorilla Forest Camp.

Serving as a base camp for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to track mountain gorillas, travelers venture out on custom designed itineraries through some of the most beautiful jungle in the world, as we see in this video:


Sanctuary Retreats also sails a fleet of expedition cruise ships on the Yangzi river in China and the Nile river in Egypt as well as through the Galapagos Islands.

[Photo Credit- Flickr User extremeboh]

Mountain gorillas making a comeback

by Sean McLachlan on


In the latest in a spate of good news about wildlife conservation in Africa, BBC Earth reports that mountain gorillas have increased their numbers on Virunga Massif, their core habitat stretching across Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From a population of only 250 thirty years ago, their population has almost doubled to 480 today. Another 302 live in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park .

The rise is attributed to increased cooperation between the three countries to protect the gorillas and stop poachers.

Safaris to see mountain gorillas have become increasingly popular with adventure travelers. Uganda has expanded its gorilla safaris in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Rwanda is also offering safaris to see the gentle giants.

African nations are getting better at preserving their wildlife. Namibia and Zimbabwe are clamping down on poaching and last year we reported how Niger has pulled a unique subspecies of giraffe from extinction.

[Photo courtesy user KMRA via Wikimedia Commons]

Uganda expands gorilla safaris

by Sean McLachlan on

Uganda has started work on habituating another mountain gorilla group to humans in order to expand safaris in its famous Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

Habituation involves gradually exposing gorillas to humans in order for the highly territorial groups to get accustomed to human presence. Once the gorilla groups become used to humans being around, they are much less likely to get frightened or aggressive when safari tours show up.

Safaris are big business in Uganda and those that track gorillas constitute about half of the country’s tourism revenue.

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, located in southwest Uganda, is made up of 331 square kilometers of thick jungle. Visitors have to travel through it on foot. It’s a tough journey but allows adventure travelers the chance to see one of the richest varieties of wildlife of any East African park. About 340 endangered mountain gorillas live in the park; sadly that constitutes half of the total population in the world. Because of its importance in protecting the gorillas and other plant and animal life, Bwindi is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.