Mgahinga Gorilla National Park

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park is a very small park in the extreme southwest of Uganda. Covering the Ugandan part of the Virunga Mountains, it is contiguous with both Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Virunga National Park in Congo. The site has been on Uganda’s Tentative List since 2007, in preparation for a possible transboundary nomination of these 3 parks.

Although it’s named ‘Gorilla National Park’, Mgahinga has only one habituated gorilla family that can be visited. And that one is prone to wander across the borders to Rwanda and Congo, so it’s not the safest bet for gorilla tracking (although since a few years the family has returned to Ugandan soil). Probably the only thing that sets this park apart from the nearby WHS of Virunga and Bwindi is its sizeable population of rare Golden Monkeys.

The Ugandan Wildlife Authority has a helpful office in Kisoro, and I booked my Golden Monkey Tracking there a day beforehand. It costs 50 US dollar for the activity, plus 40 US dollar entrance fee to the park. On the day itself a moto-taxi picked me up at 7 a.m. for the 15 km uphill ride to the park entrance.

Golden Monkeys are a related species to the more common Blue Monkey. They are an endangered primate, living in the bamboo forest. The monkeys have a bright orange-gold body, cheeks and tail, contrasting with its black limbs, crown and tail end. Some 3,000 – 4,000 of them are said to live in Mgahinga. …