Kibale Forest

About Kibale Forest

Kibale National Park protects tall, moist rainforest in western Uganda, close to Fort Portal and within sight of the Rwenzori Mountains on a clear day. It holds one of the richest concentrations of primates in Africa and is among the best places on the continent to track chimpanzees, with several communities used to people and a high chance of finding them.

Walks start from Kanyanchu in the morning or afternoon. You follow a ranger until pant-hoots and drumming on buttress roots give the chimps away, then spend an hour watching them feed, groom and squabble in the fig trees. The habituation experience spends most of a day with a community still getting used to people. Look too for red colobus, L'Hoest's monkeys and grey-cheeked mangabeys, and next door, a community-run walk through Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary brings great blue turacos.

Chimp tracking is open to visitors aged 12 and over and runs all year, though paths are firmer from June to September and December to February. Fort Portal is about five hours by road from Kampala, or you can fly to Kasese. Spend a free afternoon among the crater lakes and tea estates, then continue south to Queen Elizabeth National Park and Bwindi to combine chimps, savannah and gorillas in one trip.