Kibale National Park

Chimpanzee trekking

My wife and I did an all-day Chimp trek. So fascinating. You spend a day with them, as they travel through the forest, you share their daily routine. You see them making choices, resting, eating, drumming on trees (!), interacting. The trek itself is flat, you cover a good area, but not too hard (MUCH easier than Gorilla trekking, which I also recommend). Chimpanzees are our closest relative.. see them in the wild, in their natural habitat, up close.

Chimps were fascinating and the natural surrounds were really lovely. A nice stopover between Kampala and the seeing the gorillas.

An incredible experience

A great experience spending one hour amongst the chimp, standing very close to them and being able to observe them in their natural environment. The vegetation is not too dense which allows for good photography The guides were great and very knowledgeable. One of the top destination in Uganda

Excellent, because of the chimpansee's!

We went there to see the chimps which we heard calling long before we saw them up in t he trees

Our Encounter with Chimpanzees in Kibale Forest National Park

My husband and I enjoyed our unforgettable day experiencing wild chimpanzees in Kibale Forest National Park, Uganda. We visited the park in September 2013, having hired a safari guide to drive us from Kampala to visit Uganda’s national parks. We were especially eager to behold the wild primates in this extraordinary part of the world, and after our day in the Kibale Forest, we visited the mountain gorillas in Bwindi National Park and the golden monkeys in Mgahinga National Park.

At Kibale (as with the gorillas in Bwindi), a team of rangers had been tracking the chimpanzees and communicated their whereabouts via walkie talkies to the ranger guides, who led groups of visitors through the forest to find them. There were about a dozen visitors per group, and there were several groups. The duration of the hike depended on where the chimps were, and our hike through the forest that day was about an hour long, following a trail and slightly difficult, given the heat and humidity. An older man, carrying cameras and gear, seemed struggle with the hike, but the rest of the group, comprised of adults of various ages, managed it well.

Once we reached the chimpanzees, we left the trail and cut through the forest to stand beneath them, as they were high in the trees. We used binoculars and watched the chimpanzees, up in the trees, eating, resting and mating. There were females with babies, and males. The chimpanzees seemed rather nonchalant about the human visitors, below, having grown accustomed to being observed by rangers and the daily crowd of tourists. Occasionally, they urinated from the trees and the group of humans would dodge the downpour.

We learned that the female chimpanzees freely roamed the forest, passing through the territories of the males as they wished. The dominant males spent much time and energy maintaining their territories and determining status with one another. A female in estrus approached a young male, who granted her request for mating, and one realized that chimpanzee reality did not match the prevailing patriarchal interpretation of males being “in charge,” like human autocrats.

The groups of visitors were spread out in the forest with our assigned guides and had one hour to be in the midst of the chimpanzees. During our experience, the older man, who had been struggling on the trail, had a diabetic seizure and collapsed. The other tourists assisted him as our guide called for help. He gradually recovered and was escorted back to where the vehicles were parked.

After that incident, some of the male chimpanzees descended from the trees and briefly paused near us before traveling together across the forest floor. One stopped near me, giving me the wonderful opportunity to be in his presence for a few minutes. The tourists rushed after the chimps, moving quietly yet quickly through the brush, snapping photos. The male chimps sat together for a moment in a group, surrounded by photographers, before dispersing into the forest. We felt fortunate to have been so close to them, as encountering them on the ground felt very different and more intimate than watching them from a distance in trees, silhouetted against the midday sky.

After our hour with the chimps, we hiked back to where our hired safari guide was waiting of us. Despite the eager tourists with their cameras, the human behavior -on the part of the visitors, rangers and guides at Kibale – felt relatively respectful, and we were satisfied with what appeared to be a good conservation effort on the part of the national park staff to sustain the forest and this wild population of chimpanzees. It was, overall, an exhilarating and beautiful experience. My husband and I will always treasure the memory of that moment of connection, in the wilderness, with our closest primate relatives.

Very good place to visit and to see the chimpanzee's was a great bonus.

Trekking through the forest and getting up close a group of chimps is second only to finding the gorillas for the first time.

Incredible primate experience!

We visited Kibale Forest in May 2015 and the main reason for our visit was to see chimpanzees, we were certainly not disappointed! The experience was outstanding and the quality of the guiding was second to none. As someone who has visited all of Uganda's National Parks, I would say that seeing the chimpanzees in Kibale was up there with the best experiences in the country and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

We did the trek on a clear sunny day, which apparently helped with the viewing of Chimpanzees. We were lucky to find 3 of them within 5 minutes (having driven for 10 minutes away from the starting point, due to the chimps being some distance away). We then tracked them for about 30 minutes and found the rest of the group, around 25 individuals, whom we were able to get close to and follow for a good period of time. The walk is through fairly thick forest and quite hilly in places. We were with a mixed group, but the guide set a pace appropriate for all.

Went there just to see the Chimpanzees and we did. We came soo Close, they almost run between our legs.