Compare Untouched Africa: Gorillas of the Congo Basin by Extraordinary vs Kenya & Tanzania Adventure by Exodus Travels

Day 1: Brazzaville

Upon landing in Brazzaville in the the Republic of Congo you will be met by our ground crew outside the baggage hall and be transferred to a four star hotel in the country's capital.

Day 2: Oyo or Owando towns

After an early breakfast, you will depart Brazzaville today in private 4 x 4 vehicles along the Republic of Congo's Highway 1. Your destination tonight is the upcountry town of Oyo, where Rep. of Congo's current president was born, or Owando town, an hour’s driving distance beyond Oyo. Enjoy simple accommodation and late dinner in Oyo or Owando. Total driving distance today is six to seven hours.

Day 3:  Ouesso town and Nouabale-Ndoki National Park

This morning you must get an early start in order to arrive in Ouesso by early afternoon. After the bridge across the Mambili River, Highway 1 becomes rough gravel for the last four hours of the drive. By this time there is forest on both sides of the road. Every so often you will pass small villages which border the route. If there are road delays then it is possible to overnight in Ouesso town but ideally, you should arrive at Ouesso wharf on the Sangha River by 2:30 pm. Once at the Ouesso port, a motorized canoe called a pirogue in French Africa and the primary means of transportation in the Congo Basin waits to take visitors up the Sangha River. Your destination tonight is Bomassa, Nouabale-Ndoki National Park's headquarters. Depending on the number of your party, and river flow, this boat ride is between three and five hours. Traveling by boat on the Congo Basin’s river highways is yet another highlight of this safari.

Accommodation at Bomassa is modest, as scientific research continues to be its focus. Shared rooms come with mosquito nets and bedding; bathroom and shower are just outside the rooms. The camp uses a generator for power which is switched off at 9 PM.

Day 4 & 5:  Habituated Gorillas of Mondika Camp- Nouabale-Ndoki National Park

Today you head for Mondika Camp via 4 x 4 vehicle (50 minutes) and on foot (2.5 hours). There is some flooded forest to cross at the beginning of the walk and rubber boots are required. The depth

of water depends on the season and the flooded forest is significantly less of an obstacle during the dry season from mid-November to end of February. You will arrive in time for lunch.

There are two habituated gorilla groups around Mondika and after a quick rest and lunch you will head out for your first gorilla tracking! One of the gorilla families often comes very close to camp. At least two gorilla permits are recommended for a two night stay at Mondika. Additional permits can be purchased as well.

This tour allows you to experience an extraordinary culture as well. Congo Basin forests are the ancestral homes of Ba’Aka pygmies, traditionally hunters and gatherers, and cornerstones of today's tourism programs because without their knowledge of the forest and its wildlife the gorilla habituation programs would not exist. Every time you enter the forest you are escorted by a Ba’Aka guide.

The next morning you will go on your second trek to visit the habituated gorilla families in the morning and if you wish enjoy a forest walk in afternoon learning about tree species and indigenous plants from your Ba'Aka guides. In the evening relax and chat with your Ba'Aka trackers or the head of gorilla habituation and research also acts as camp manager at Mondika (the camp manager/research will often accompany you on gorilla treks as well)

While Mondika Camp sleeps a maximum of eight visitors, only two/three people at a time can visit the gorillas. The camp manager decides on gorilla trekking logistics for each group of visitors.

Day 6 & 7: Mbeli Camp and Mbeli Bai- Observations of Unhabituated Gorillas

Today you head to Mbeli Camp on foot (2.5 hours), by road (40 minutes), and by pirogue (90 minutes). The pirogue ride up the Ndoki and Mbeli Rivers to Mbeli Camp is perhaps the most magical of all the river travel on this tour. There is no motor; instead, two trackers stand upright at the front and back of the traditional wooden pirogue and propel the craft along with long paddles. On either side of the narrow river channel is lush forest. Sometimes the forest meets overhead creating a canopy over your canoe. After lunch, you walk 45 minutes through the forest to Mbeli Bai, an extensive clearing several hundred meters in length. Here wildlife such as elephants, gorillas, buffaloes and antelopes come to feed on nutritious aquatic plants growing in the swampy soil. Wildlife is observed from a raised wooden platform located in the tree-line.

This is your best opportunity on the tour for spotting the some 150 unhabituated gorillas known to researchers who come here (there may be as many at 90,000 lowland gorillas in Republic of Congo, these 150 are those that are well known to the researchers and come to the Mbeli Bai regularly). You return to camp in the late afternoon.

Mbeli Camp consists of four screened bungalows on stilts, all facing the forest. Bathing houses and long drop toilets are at the foot of the stairs of each bungalow. Water is heated for hand showers. There is no generator at Mbeli Camp. Dinner is usually attended by the resident researchers which allows guests to learn more about the wildlife under observation at Mbeli. On your second day at Mbeli Bai you will spend a full day at the observation tower with picnic lunch.

Day 8:  Bomassa

Today you begin your journey back to Brazzaville. You will return to Bomassa and the park headquarters, arriving mid to late morning. After a brief rest, you transfer by motorized pirogue downriver to Ouesso town where you will spend the night. There will be time to explore this frontier town on foot. Spend the night at one of two simple hotels in Ouesso.

Day 9:  Ouesso – Oyo/Owando

Continue retracing your steps, spending the night in either Oyo or Owando.

Day 10: Brazzaville

You will arrive Brazzaville early to mid afternoon and will have use of a day room until your early evening check-in for your flight.

If you are spending an additional day in Brazzaville you can enjoy a city tour with visits to local churches and markets or a visit to a local non-profit which supports and feeds local street children.

JC, private guide and logistics master will be with you every step of the way while your guides in the park are the Ba'Aka and the researchers who live and work with the gorillas. If you are interested and book your trip at least 6 months in advance you can choose to have the founder of Congo Gorilla Tours, Leslie Nevison, join you.

Because of the size of the camps each trip is limited to a maximum of 8 people but can be done for as few as 2.

Day 1 Start Nairobi

If you have booked your own flights, arrive at the start hotel at any time today. Those on the group flights from London, UK, will arrive tomorrow morning. There are no activities planned, so relax and settle into Nairobi life. To make things easy, there are free transfers available from the airport, see the Joining Instructions in the Trip Notes for more information. Accommodation: Heron Hotel (or similar)

Day 2 To Kembu Farm

After the arrival of the group flights in the early morning, we travel west into the Great Rift Valley to Kembu, stopping in Nakuru en route to shop and look around this typical African town. We stay on a farm tonight and can go on a farm walk this afternoon. Accommodation: Kembu Farm or similar (full-service camping)

Day 3 Full day of game drives in Lake Nakuru National Park

This morning, we drive to Lake Nakuru National Park, where we enjoy a superb game drive. Although small, the park is home to an amazing variety of animals and birdlife. It also has a soda lake, which is sometimes home to thousands of flamingos. We hope to see endangered white and black rhinos, lions and, if we are very lucky, the elusive leopard. There is a stunning view above the lake from Baboon Cliffs and here we may see a rock hyrax, a small, furry relative of the elephant. Tonight, we stay just outside the park in a campsite with good showers and flush toilets. Accommodation: Nderit Campsite or similar (full-service camping)

Day 4 To Masai Mara; late afternoon game drive

Today we travel into the Masai Mara, one of the most famous ecosystems in the world. This vast grassland is teeming with life; plains game including wildebeest, gazelle, topis, zebras and buffalos, and never far away are the predators: cheetahs, lions and hyenas. Between mid-August and late October, one of the greatest spectacles on Earth takes place in the Mara – the annual migration of thousands of wildebeest, gazelles and zebras. Nothing is guaranteed on safari but, with the help of our brilliant guides, you should see and learn a huge amount about the resident wildlife as we game drive through the park this afternoon. We stay in a campsite just outside the reserve for the next two nights. Accommodation: Mara Springs Camp or similar (full-service camping) Upgrades available

Day 5 Full day of game drives in the Masai Mara

We have a full-day game drive in the Masai Mara to increase our chances of encountering many of the wildlife species in the reserve. We find a quiet spot inside the park to enjoy lunch by our vehicle, looking across the plains. There are also several optional excursions you can enjoy today in addition to the game drive. Get up early for a sunrise hot-air balloon safari (including champagne and breakfast) or visit a traditional Maasai village to meet the local people. Accommodation: Mara Springs Camp or similar (full-service camping) Upgrades available

Day 6 To Lake Victoria

Our long drive today is up through the Western Highlands and allows plenty of time to appreciate the superb scenery. The road begins to descend and we leave the neatly ordered rows of tea bushes as we cross the border into Tanzania at Isebania. We camp in a pleasant spot at Musoma on the shore of Lake Victoria. Accommodation: Tembo Beach / Matvilla beach or similar (full-service camping) Upgrades and wi-fi available

Day 7 - 8 Two days of game drives in Serengeti National Park

Today, we turn east and enter the vast Serengeti Plain, one of the largest parks in Africa. There is a choice of routes into the Serengeti, depending on the weather: if it is dry, the 80mi (130km) Western Corridor is open and usually full of plains game. If it is wet, however, this road, which is built on black cotton soil, is impassible and we must enter the park from the north at Ndabaka gate. We spend two nights in the park so we have plenty of time to enjoy the vast open spaces and the variety of game. We camp at Seronera, where there are various camping areas, all in open bush with no fences to prevent the animals from visiting during the night. A real taste of wild Africa! Accommodation: Serengeti Public Campsite or similar (full-service camping)

Day 9 Morning game drive; to Ngorongoro Crater

Day 10 Explore the Ngorongoro Crater; drive along the Rift Valley to Arusha

We descend to the crater floor in 4x4 vehicles and spend the morning watching large numbers of plains game, and the ever-present predators around them. We search for hippos in the murky pools and try to protect our food at lunchtime from the fearless brown kites, as they swoop and snatch anything that appears to be edible. After a fantastic morning, we continue our journey to the edge of the Rift Valley, where there is a great view over Lake Manyara (often tinted pink around the edges from large numbers of flamingos) and to Arusha. Accommodation: Meserani Snake Park or similar (full-service camping)

Day 11 Flight to Zanzibar; afternoon in Stone Town

We take a morning flight to Zanzibar, an island 22mi (35km) from the mainland. First visited by Arab traders in the eighth century, and countless travellers in the following centuries, it is most famous for its spices and was once the centre of the East African slave trade. We spend our first night in Stone Town and then two nights by the beach. Stone Town is a myriad of small alleys and markets. We recommend a spice tour around the island plantations with chances to taste and buy. Accommodation: Shangani Hotel (or similar)

Day 12 - 13 Free days for optional activities

After a free morning in Stone Town, we transfer to our hotel by the beach. There is plenty to occupy your days here. You can relax on the eastern and northern beaches, with excellent snorkelling, sailing in a dhow and plenty of fresh seafood. The local buses are efficient and enable you to travel all over the island, although hiring a 4x4 for a day or two is a more exciting way of getting about and not expensive. It’s a fascinating mixture of culture, history and wonderful beaches. Accommodation: Mnarani Beach Cottages / Sunset bungalows (or similar)

Day 14 End Zanzibar

Our adventure ends after breakfast and we begin our return journeys home. If you’d like more time to explore, speak to your sales representative about extending your stay.