
From
United KingdomKaara is a truly magical place to stay for exploring Bwindi National park.
We were welcomed by Wilfred and his team and then had an amazing and very warm welcome welcome by the local village culture group who performed music and dancing to tell us about their culture! This was the best welcome we have ever had to a hotel!
Throughout our stay, all of the staff worked tirelessly to make us comfortable - from cleaning our boots after a days hiking (thank you Moses!) to setting up breakfast on the terrace to watch the sunrise!
A particular highlight was a short sunset hike, led by Barnabus to give us panoramic views of the sunset and volcano! Thank you Barnabus - we really enjoyed this and appreciated you taking the time to walk with us!
The staff lit us a fire each evening at the fire pit so we could have a drink as the sun went down.
The chefs did an excellent job and the food was great! They also prepared delicious lunches for us on the days we were out hiking.
Before we stayed, Peter was extremely helpful in sorting out our Gorilla tracking permits - even going to the bank when the payment was delayed and emailing them to us ahead of time! Having the permits sorted helped everything run smoothly for our days gorilla tracking. You do need to print the permits in advance so much sure you do this before travelling!
Whilst staying at Kaara, we also did the Batwa Forest cultural experience (booked through the UWA) - we were unsure what to expect from this and were sceptical as it seemed to be a lot of money, however we were so glad we did! We hiked through the forest with some of the Batwa community who showed us about how they lived in the forest as we went. They showed us where they lived, how they made fire, climbed trees for fruit, caught animals and many more things. It was amazing to see how resourceful they were and also how happy and comfortable they were in the forest. I would recommend doing this to anyone who has an extra day after gorilla trekking.