Kidepo

Kidepo Valley National Park with a geographical size of: 1,442km2, 10 hours drive distance (700 km) from Entebbe Airport, the park’s altitude ranges between 914m and 2,750m above sea level. The Park contains two rivers – Kidepo and Narus – which disappear in the dry season, leaving just pools for the wildlife. Gazetted as a national park in 1962, it has a profusion of big game and hosts over 77 mammal species as well as around 475 bird species.

Kidepo is most notably harbors a number of wildlife animals that are not found anywhere else in Uganda, including caracal, cheaters, bat eared fox and greater and lesser kudus. It is one of the most alluring safari destinations, combining rugged mountain scenery and compelling wilderness atmosphere with some exceptional good game viewing particularly in the narus valley with its dense populations of zebras, Elephants, bushbuck, giraffes, lions, jackals, leopards, hyenas and Nile crocodiles.

The park also retains a genuinely off the beaten track experience compared to other safari destinations in Uganda. The rolling, short-grass savannah of the 1442-sq-km park is ringed by mountains and cut by rocky ridges. Amazingly, most of the animals, including even the occasional lion, are content to graze and lounge right near the park accommodation, so you can see a whole lot without going very far – a kind of armchair safari.

During the dry season, the only permanent water in the park is found in wetlands and remnant pools in the broad Narus Valley near Apoka. These seasonal oases, combined with the open, savannah terrain, make the Narus Valley the park’s prime game viewing location.

The local communities around the park include pastoral Karamojong people, similar to the Maasai of Kenya, and the IK, a hunter-gatherer tribe whose survival is threatened after recent transition from the indigenous nomadism life style.