Seeing gorillas in Uganda is one of the great African adventures and one of the best safaris in Africa. Open to tourism not so many years ago, Uganda has a bit of everything: national parks with African fauna, geographical landmarks such as the sources of the Nile, evergreen equatorial landscapes and the intense life on its village roads. And of course, that trekking to see gorillas in the Bwindies forest is the culmination of any trip to Uganda.
1. Gained independence from the UK in 1962.
2. The average number of children per woman is almost 7 children, one of the highest rates in the world.
3. The life of Idi Amin, a Ugandan dictator and genocide, was collected by journalist Giles Foden in the book ‘The Last King of Scotland’, which was also made a film adaptation.
4. In Uganda are the sources of the Nile, the source of this river, in Lake Victoria.
5. Uganda has been, for ten centuries, the melting point of some forty different ethnic groups, all of them belonging to the three main language families: Bantu, Nilotic and Hamitic.
6. Called “the Pearl of Africa” by Winston Churchill, Uganda has a great diversity of African fauna, including endangered species such as mountain gorillas and chimpanzees.
7. Approximately 50% of the Mountain Gorilla population is found in Uganda. Only about 700 individuals of this critically endangered species survive in 3 countries which also include Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
