After getting the gorilla visit organised we needed to work out where to visit and where to stay for the remainder of the trip - so it was out with the maps and guidebooks to see what to do and where to go.
One thing we learned from Namibia and Botswana was to try not to drive too much, and to stay in nice places for a few nights rather than just one.
We reckon that we might travel 2500-3000 km rather than the 6000 that we did in Nam/Bot.
The way the main National Parks are arranged seemed to lend themselves to a nice round trip - North to Murchison Falls, South West to Kibale and QE Forest, further South to Volcans in Rwanda, even further South to Nyungwe, then North and West to Akagera over the border again into Uganda and Lake Mburo.
This route would seem to give us the chance to see all the different terrains, from savannah to forest to mountain, to volcanoes, to lakes, to marsh. It should also give us a great chance to see some of the towns - Fort Portal, Musanze, Kigali, Mbarara and the countryside and farmland in between.
The different NPs also have very different styles to them, with fantastically diverse wildlife to view.
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Vehicle hire
We have decided to hire a 4x4 - simply it seemed more sensible to have a more robust vehicle for some of the dirt roads. We had a 4x4 in Namibia/Botswana a few years ago, and although roads there were generally pretty good, we did hit some deep sand in some of the NPs so it was more a necessity than a luxury.
Unfortunately it is not so easy to get a good 4x4 for hire in Uganda (Namibia had lots to offer, with fridges and roof tents etc) -
Namibian 4x4
I did some internet searching - and found a few good reports on tripadvisor and such like for a company called Habari Car Rentals http://www.ugandarwandacarhire.com/ who offered a Mazda Levante for 3 weeks. Once I contacted them I found them very helpful and as they use a British bank account we could even transfer money to them without incurring massive banking charges. We have been corresponding with someone called Kizito who seems very keen to help - they have even searched the camping shops of Kampala to see if they could find a gas canister that would fit my little stove. (they couldn't so I'll be taking my petrol stove instead).
Not available!
They have offered to buy a couple of camping chairs, which will certainly come in useful. They are going to deliver the car to our hotel in Entebbe.
We even managed to haggle a better price from them - so hire of vehicle, maximum insurance, and cross border fees/carnets - US$1750.00 (1325Euro or £1085.00)
Unfortunately it is not so easy to get a good 4x4 for hire in Uganda (Namibia had lots to offer, with fridges and roof tents etc) -
Namibian 4x4
I did some internet searching - and found a few good reports on tripadvisor and such like for a company called Habari Car Rentals http://www.ugandarwandacarhire.com/ who offered a Mazda Levante for 3 weeks. Once I contacted them I found them very helpful and as they use a British bank account we could even transfer money to them without incurring massive banking charges. We have been corresponding with someone called Kizito who seems very keen to help - they have even searched the camping shops of Kampala to see if they could find a gas canister that would fit my little stove. (they couldn't so I'll be taking my petrol stove instead).
Not available!
They have offered to buy a couple of camping chairs, which will certainly come in useful. They are going to deliver the car to our hotel in Entebbe.
We even managed to haggle a better price from them - so hire of vehicle, maximum insurance, and cross border fees/carnets - US$1750.00 (1325Euro or £1085.00)
Monday, 23 April 2012
Proposed route map
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Starting at Entebbe airport just south of Kampala and going in an anti-clockwise direction.
Flights
We booked our flights through KLM http://www.klm.com - not only were they the cheapest for flying from Edinburgh to Entebbe in Uganda, they also offered the best flight times.
I used a couple of comparison sites, http://www.netflights.com/ and http://www.skyscanner.net/ but only to see what flights were actually available. I then used the individual carrier's sites to check and see what was best. KLM and Airfrance are actually one and the same and their prices are very similar.
However by far and away the best thing about flying with KLM is that we don't have to travel through any of the London airports, which if you didn't know are akin to the seven circles of hell.
Heathrow -
Gatwick -
Lovely Amsterdam Schiphol :-)
Flights cost £1340.00 for two people economy class, but bought and paid for 9 months before travelling. We fly on the 7th September, and the same flights now cost over £1400.00. British Airways also offer flights with a price of £7500 - I wonder if anyone uses them other than businessmen on fat expense accounts.
We leave Edinburgh early in the morning and will be in Uganda late that same evening. On the way home we'll leave late in the evening and be home by lunch time the next day - ideal really.
I used a couple of comparison sites, http://www.netflights.com/ and http://www.skyscanner.net/ but only to see what flights were actually available. I then used the individual carrier's sites to check and see what was best. KLM and Airfrance are actually one and the same and their prices are very similar.
However by far and away the best thing about flying with KLM is that we don't have to travel through any of the London airports, which if you didn't know are akin to the seven circles of hell.
Heathrow -
Gatwick -
Lovely Amsterdam Schiphol :-)
Flights cost £1340.00 for two people economy class, but bought and paid for 9 months before travelling. We fly on the 7th September, and the same flights now cost over £1400.00. British Airways also offer flights with a price of £7500 - I wonder if anyone uses them other than businessmen on fat expense accounts.
We leave Edinburgh early in the morning and will be in Uganda late that same evening. On the way home we'll leave late in the evening and be home by lunch time the next day - ideal really.
Where to start
We will be travelling in Uganda/Rwanda for approximately 3 weeks, so how did we chose what to do and where to go.
We made a list of the things that we definitely wanted to do and see - this list was initially very short..
1 - See the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
2 - er that's it.....
So the holiday hinged on getting booked onto a mountain gorilla trek, and then fitting everything round about this. We purchased two guide books, getting the most up to date ones we could find firstly the lonelyplanet for East Africa http://www.amazon.co.uk/Africa-Lonely-Planet-Multi-Country/dp/1741047692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335194841&sr=8-1 despite saying the last time I was in Africa that I wouldn't use a lonely planet guide again! And secondly the Footprint guide to Uganda http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uganda-Footprint-Handbook-Handbooks/dp/1907263411/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335194933&sr=1-1 .
For Rwandan mountain gorillas you need a permit and the lonely planet guide book recommended using a local agency rather than trying to book directly with the Rwandan Tourist Board, as they would probably be much easier to deal with.
The guide book recommended Amahoro tours http://www.amahoro-tours.com/index.html and a quick e-mail to them was all it took to get the arrangements started. Amahoro have a guest house in Musanze/Ruhengeri http://www.amahoro-guesthouse.com/ and we have booked to stay with them here, get transferred to the visitor centre for the trek, and for a community visit. They have arranged the permits for the gorilla trek.
Apart from one small blip, when they contacted me to say that there was a problem with my chosen date (3 months after I booked it!) they seem to have been very professional. We were lucky to book as early as we did as the permit fees have increased from $500 pp to $750, but as we had booked before the price rise we got ours for the $500.
As you can see this is not cheap, the total cost for 2 nights B&B at the guest house, trekking to see the gorillas, banana beer making and basket weaving visit was US$1580.00 (£981.00 or 1200.00Euro).
I transferred half of this amount using internet banking, with a request from Amahoro to bring the remaining 50% in cash. However, I think I'll probably transfer the remainder before travelling as I don't want to be carrying too much cash around with us. When I transferred the money I only paid my bank's fees, but this means that Amahoro's bank's fees get deducted from the amount that they receive, and not surprisingly they want us to pay all the fees. So feel free to add another £50 onto the top of the bill if you want to use bank transfers!
So once the gorilla permits were in place, everything else could get arranged...
We made a list of the things that we definitely wanted to do and see - this list was initially very short..
1 - See the mountain gorillas in Rwanda.
2 - er that's it.....
So the holiday hinged on getting booked onto a mountain gorilla trek, and then fitting everything round about this. We purchased two guide books, getting the most up to date ones we could find firstly the lonelyplanet for East Africa http://www.amazon.co.uk/Africa-Lonely-Planet-Multi-Country/dp/1741047692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335194841&sr=8-1 despite saying the last time I was in Africa that I wouldn't use a lonely planet guide again! And secondly the Footprint guide to Uganda http://www.amazon.co.uk/Uganda-Footprint-Handbook-Handbooks/dp/1907263411/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335194933&sr=1-1 .
For Rwandan mountain gorillas you need a permit and the lonely planet guide book recommended using a local agency rather than trying to book directly with the Rwandan Tourist Board, as they would probably be much easier to deal with.
The guide book recommended Amahoro tours http://www.amahoro-tours.com/index.html and a quick e-mail to them was all it took to get the arrangements started. Amahoro have a guest house in Musanze/Ruhengeri http://www.amahoro-guesthouse.com/ and we have booked to stay with them here, get transferred to the visitor centre for the trek, and for a community visit. They have arranged the permits for the gorilla trek.
Apart from one small blip, when they contacted me to say that there was a problem with my chosen date (3 months after I booked it!) they seem to have been very professional. We were lucky to book as early as we did as the permit fees have increased from $500 pp to $750, but as we had booked before the price rise we got ours for the $500.
As you can see this is not cheap, the total cost for 2 nights B&B at the guest house, trekking to see the gorillas, banana beer making and basket weaving visit was US$1580.00 (£981.00 or 1200.00Euro).
I transferred half of this amount using internet banking, with a request from Amahoro to bring the remaining 50% in cash. However, I think I'll probably transfer the remainder before travelling as I don't want to be carrying too much cash around with us. When I transferred the money I only paid my bank's fees, but this means that Amahoro's bank's fees get deducted from the amount that they receive, and not surprisingly they want us to pay all the fees. So feel free to add another £50 onto the top of the bill if you want to use bank transfers!
So once the gorilla permits were in place, everything else could get arranged...
Sunday, 22 April 2012
Reasons for this blog
Ok - so we are going on holiday to Uganda and Rwanda later this year, but despite having the maps, guidebooks and the internet we have struggled to find the really useful information regarding travelling to these countries.
We are organising this holiday ourselves - we reckon that no travel agents means for a better value holiday, but it does mean that we have to do all the bookings and research ourselves.
In no particular order some of the problems are - finding the latest information regarding visas, getting useful e-mail addresses for tracking chimpanzees, knowing when I dial a number in either country knowing whether the noises I am getting in my ear are "engaged", or "ringing" or "unobtainable", where is the best place to get money changed and so on and so on.
However, that doesn't mean that some of it isn't incredibly easy to do - some of the more commercially aware private companies we have contacted have been fantastic. I'll try to detail them all at some point in the future.
So I am going to try to write it all in this blog so that others following us may have a little more information to work with and maybe to make it all a little bit easier. I'm not saying that it isn't fun trying to get an answer out of the Ugandan government's information office, but it might help if you have the right e-mail address or telephone number.
We are organising this holiday ourselves - we reckon that no travel agents means for a better value holiday, but it does mean that we have to do all the bookings and research ourselves.
In no particular order some of the problems are - finding the latest information regarding visas, getting useful e-mail addresses for tracking chimpanzees, knowing when I dial a number in either country knowing whether the noises I am getting in my ear are "engaged", or "ringing" or "unobtainable", where is the best place to get money changed and so on and so on.
However, that doesn't mean that some of it isn't incredibly easy to do - some of the more commercially aware private companies we have contacted have been fantastic. I'll try to detail them all at some point in the future.
So I am going to try to write it all in this blog so that others following us may have a little more information to work with and maybe to make it all a little bit easier. I'm not saying that it isn't fun trying to get an answer out of the Ugandan government's information office, but it might help if you have the right e-mail address or telephone number.
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