Kyaninga Lodge

Kyaninga is the first stop on our Uganda & Rwanda journey, and it sets the tone. The lodge stands on a private estate above a crater lake near Kibale Forest, with eight suites looking out over the water. After the drive from the airstrip it feels like arriving at a friend's house in the hills.

We use it for the chimpanzees. One morning your guide walks you into Kibale Forest National Park, and you follow the calls through the canopy until the group appears. Chimps move fast and make a great deal of noise, and an hour with them is a very different thing from an hour with gorillas later in the journey. Both are worth doing, and Kyaninga gives you a calm place to come back to.

The other two days are yours. Walk the estate, or sit on your deck above the lake with a pair of binoculars. It is the right pace for the start of a journey that asks a lot of your legs later.

Kyaninga suits active travellers and couples, and anyone who wants to see more of Uganda than the gorilla forests alone.

Your Cessna Caravan meets your international arrival at Entebbe and flies you west to the strip at Kasese. The pilot makes a low pass to check the runway is clear before landing, and a short drive brings you to the lodge. You leave by helicopter, south over the crater lakes to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Good to know

• Gorilla trekking later in the journey has a minimum age of 15; permits are booked well ahead.
• Uganda is driest from June to September and December to February.
• Uganda is a malaria country; take advice on prophylaxis.

Country: Uganda