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How to Avoid Visa Complications? Decoding Uganda’s Immigration Scribbles …
Look at that scribble in the photo, below “08” on the stamp. Look very carefully. No, it’s not an abbreviation for “Immigration”, it’s something else that can cause you trouble when you leave Uganda! It says “1 m” and limits your stay in the country to one month, regardless of what your visa might otherwise…
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Explore Rwanda With Expert Guides This February
📁 HikingWish to have our expert birder Hawa and Congo Nile Trail specialist Cesar show you their home country? Join our guest from Italy, Catherina Unger, on a very special February trip through Rwanda! As a seasoned traveler and tour agent, Catherina has plentiful fascinating stories to share. Her passion for travel photography also promises some…
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Unpacked: Our Bluesky Community
The world of short-post social media is in flux at the moment, and we’re placing our bet on Bluesky. Throughout the rest of 2024 we shall be experimenting with this 5-year-old app/website that is growing dramatically and currently boasts 20 million users. Our mission is to create a vibrant community and a cool medium for…
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Omushomesa’s Inspiration
There’s Polona from Slovenia who likely doesn’t even know she has a namesake in Uganda! This volunteer stayed with us at Lake Bunyonyi from December 2007 to March 2008 … and in addition to all the good work she did, she also happened to inspire an omushomesa! Omushomesa? A literal translation is “teacher”, but in…
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Mobility Issues? David Can’t Be Stopped!
Three years after he explored Uganda with us, David Azumbrado came back for more. This time he spiced up his travel days (and the lives of GHE Youth Spaces participants) with a presentation about using digital technologies. Once the volunteering day was ticked off, he hit the roads of Rwanda for real. He paid a…
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Welcome to Our Home
Do you even know where we live?! This June we moved into a house in Musanze’s Kizungu area. It’s a spacious place that blends family life with the demands of Gorilla Highlands Experts work. The building has five rooms, a large kitchen, and an even bigger living and dining area, its walls decorated with images captured by Marcus…
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When Her Life Rolls Out in Front of Her Eyes
When we organise trips for other tour companies, we never push to build relationships with the guests. It’s kinda unprofessional; their clients are their clients and their brand is their brand. But when one of last month’s travellers tagged an image on Facebook because she had enjoyed our home-made lunch so much, we reached out…
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Mouthwatering Blend of Batwa Culture and Bakiga Hospitality (Coming Soon)
We are making significant headway towards launching responsible Batwa “Pygmy” boat trips on Lake Bunyonyi! What we initiated in August is now on track to be readily available in October: a mouthwatering blend of Batwa culture and Bakiga hospitality. Last week we organised a meeting on the western side of Bunyonyi, at Mama Bena’s. We…
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The Shadowy Secrets of Sunbird Hill: Who Would Visit Kibale for Chimps?!
National park megastars can be annoying. Allow a park to get famous for one specific thing and that’s all people are going to think about. In the case of Kibale NP in western Uganda, it’s the chimpanzee! But picture an enchanting place — right on the jungle fringe — where a nature lover can get…
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Gallery Surprise in Kigali Leads to … The Home of Edirisa!
This is a postscript to the series that marked 20 years of Edirisa and 10 years of the Gorilla Highlands Initiative. Click here for Part I. When Antonio Chedrawy planned his return to Kigali, one special place from a previous trip was high on his agenda … The very first to arrive for the OMG…
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Judges From Dubai Decide … Beetroot for the Win!
Brigitte Ishimwe and Justine Mukandayisenga have emerged as the champions of the 2024 cohort of GHE Youth Spaces! Their Beet-Nourish Creation business most impressed our judges from Omnicom Media Group (MENA) — in the photo they are posing with the company CEO, Elda Choucair. You might notice that Elda’s attire is a bit unusual for…
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After a Year of Preparations … It’s a Go!
This is going to be the trek of the year for us! We have been preparing to welcome a corporate group from Dubai since 2023 and today we’re taking them on a five-day hiking adventure. It’s a big deal that Omnicom Media Group (MENA) chose us for their 10th Challenge for Good anniversary — a…
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Partnership with Batwa “Pygmies”: Not the Easiest but Highly Impactful
Volunteering with Batwa “Pygmies”? Not the easiest thing in the world, yet potentially highly impactful! Londoner Edd had selected it from our long list of projects that had been waiting for the right person — and that’s how he found himself in a dugout with two Batwa delegates. The destination: BirdNest Resort, Lake Bunyonyi. There,…
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Shattered Expectations
Anjni and Kalpa’s expectations were shattered within 24 hours. Rwanda greeted them with a neat airport, helpful and friendly officials, smooth roads, cleanliness, and no hassle whatsoever. Even people’s traditional attire wasn’t far from their own Indian heritage! The sisters live in Australia and America but they were born in Kenya, and they thought Rwanda would resemble their motherland much more…
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The Three Beaches of Lake Nabugabo
Wondering where to stop for a picturesque sleepover between Uganda’s southwest and Kampala? It’s a looong drive to Entebbe Airport if you embark from somewhere around Bwindi Impenetrable or Mgahinga National Park … Lake Nabugabo is an ideally situated layover, lying 23km/14mi from the town of Masaka, and blessed with a good tarmac road most…
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The Joys & Trials of Visiting 14 Kisoro Accommodations
Imagine enjoying breakfast on a little island bathed in gorgeous morning sunshine — who wouldn’t love that? The tasty eats on Gahiza Island were the absolute highlight of our familiarisation trip in Uganda’s Kisoro District last week. Sasha, our 22-year-old Rwandan team member, and Maani, a 17-year-old Slovenian/Ugandan, had a blast. As our tour arrangers…
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Tailored African Experiences: Six Greek Adventurers
Ready for a glimpse into the African journey of six Greek explorers? They came to our region to volunteer but thanks to early planning totally maxed their trip with a customised experience! Angelos, a nuclear physicist, reached out to us last year, already preparing for June 2024. He dreamt of an affordable tour for four,…
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And the Top Three Teams Are … (Youth Spaces Pitch Pictorial)
Before we proceed: congratulations to Rwanda on its Liberation Day! 30 years ago, the Rwandan Patriotic Front ended the genocide against the Tutsi, and thanks to this revolution we can now proudly take you to the town of Musanze in the north of the country, right under the Virunga volcanoes … … where the last…
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