Gorillas in August!! Help us!!

Hi all,

my husband and I are travelling to East Africa in August 2010. We haven't booked anything yet, still in the process of planning. Yes I know...we are really leaving things late for such a busy period!!

Our initial reason for booking a trip to Africa was to trek the gorillas in Rwanda. We contacted who I thought were the ORTPN but I actually contacted someone through this website http://www.rwandatourism.com/home.htm rather then through this website which i discovered later http://www.ortpn.gov.rw/indexe.htm.

The lady at Rwanda Tourism advised the permits for August are all booked out!! Argghhhhhhh, I was told by other helpful people that this was likely to be the case but now i'm shattered!

Can anyone tell me if I still have options??

I was wondering.....do tour companies book out permits in advance in the anticipation that they will have people book with them for a trek? Should I start emailing around to the different companies?

Any advice on this would be great, including any tour companies that have a good reputation.

Thanks a lot.

Smorts

Your best bet is to contact Greg at Amahoro Tours. He buys more gorilla permits than anyone else in Rwanda, and yes there is a very active secondary market amongst the local tour operators. When ORTPN has said they are sold out he can usually come up with one or two if you can give him a few days search window.

greg@amahoro-tours.com

http://www.amahoro-tours.com/contact.html

I had the same problem as I was looking to go in June but they seem to be booked out until October. Best bet is to contact the tour operators. I'm in the process of speaking to Greg at amahoro tours and Kennedy at Hakuna Matata tours. Hopefully I'll get this booked in the next week so if you want some more info, send me a pm.

Any luck with the permits? I too was told there are none, but have a tour operator waiting to see if something comes open.

mm..why dont you just pop overe to Uganda, where you have Bwindi and Mugahinga? Same deal, really.

Congo Gorillas permits ar availlable for 400USD.

Imara and Smortly! have you got the permits??

Hi all,
We managed to secure a couple of permits in Rwanda. We had to shuffle our plans around a bit though and are now doing the gorilla trek early September.
We ended up going through a tour company by the name of Rwanda Eco-tours and have added on some extra time in Rwanda to explore a few other areas.
They have been great and really patient with all my endless questions. I know it's more expensive to do the trek through an operator but with limited time til we travel I thought we'd leave the stress to someone else rather then try and do it all completely independently.
The count down is on! 6 weeks til we fly to Nairobi for the trip of a lifetime!!