Safari to Kisoro and Mgahinga

unreliable gorilla sightings

Kisoro is a typically scruffy African town, set amongst some locally scenery of undulating hills, terraced with small-scale agriculture.

The town contains little of interest to most travellers, other than its large and colourful market.

At just 33 square kilometres, Mgahinga is a very small extension to the much larger Virunga Mountains reserve across the border in Rwanda.

Unlike the Rwandan side, which attracts a regular flow of visitors, Mgahinga only has one lodge, which struggles for custom.

The main reason for this is that the gorilla sightings here cannot be relied upon. The gorilla families often cross the steep mountain ridges to descend down this side, but equally they often disappear over the other side for weeks and even months on end.

If you were to include a second or third gorilla location into your trip and you wanted to take a chance on Mgahinga, then you may be rewarded with an unusual intimate and private experience. The worst that will happen is that you will enjoy some great hiking.

On the rare occasion that Mgahinga features in a trip, the usual stay duration is 2-4 nights.

Getting there

Mgahinga is reached by road, usually in advanced-user trips that combine the gorilla areas of Bwindi Forest in Uganda and Virunga Mountains in Rwanda, in which case it lies conveniently on the route.

If you are not intending to do this combination, then Mgahinga can be very inconvenient to include in a trip, which is why it is so little-visited.

only fits into trips with multiple gorilla locations