“Uganda 🇺🇬 ~Mgahinga Gorilla National Park and Tracking Rare Golden Monkeys”
Mgahinga is Uganda’s smallest National Park. The park takes its name from “Gahinga;” …the local word for the piles of volcanic stones cleared from farmland, at the foot of the volcanoes. The British administration declared the area a game sanctuary in 1930, then it was gazetted as a National Park in 1991.
Mgahinga has one habituated trans-boundary gorilla group, and they can be seen every now and again, when tracking the rare Golden Monkey; which also reside in this Park. We would spend six hours tracking the Golden Monkey, high up into the 13,000 foot elevation level. It was a tough trek, but we saw the rare Monkeys high up in the trees, feeding on bamboo leaves. The Batwa Tribe were self-sufficient in these lands, long before the Park was established, so the park has mature fruit trees and other plants that still continue to flourish, though no longer farmed.
As well as being important for wildlife, the park also has a huge cultural significance; in particular, for the indigenous Batwa pygmies. This tribe of hunter-gatherers were the forest’s “first people,” and their ancient knowledge of its secrets, remains unrivalled.
Mgahinga’s most striking features are its three conical, extinct volcanoes, part of the spectacular Virunga Range that lie along the border region of Uganda, Congo and Rwanda. Mgahinga forms part of the much larger Virunga Conservation Area, which include adjacent parks in these countries.
The volcano slopes contain various ecosystems and are biologically diverse, and their peaks provide a striking backdrop to this gorgeous scenery.
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Hello and Welcome to our Travel Blog Website, We enjoy writing about our experiences and taking photos of our adventuring along the way. Our names are: Daryl and Pen, but Daryl calls me “Bunny.” We met, quite randomly, whilst both… Read More