Gatatu Safaris

Beautiful 1 day gorillas safari in Bwindi

I met Richard, the ceo of Gatatu Safaris, in Kabale and he could organize a gorilla safari with a permit for the next day for a very reasonable price. Richard is very professional, open, and friendly. The trip was absolutely perfect and breathtaking and we had a wonderful time together. I learned a lot from him about different aspects of life in Uganda. Also Richard showed me a local school around Bunyonyi he is managing and supporting, which was a very humbling and inspiring experience.
Thank Richard and Gatatu Safaris for that unforgettable experience!

Absolutely excellent, everybody was extremely friendly and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them.

The communications were great, very clear and precise. The service was awesome, especially the food. The tour was well organised as I spent some time getting to know the Bunyonyi and Kabale area. The time I spent with Richard and Charles was fantastic and they were very friendly and extremely accommodating.

Unforgettable expirience and great oganization of the whole trip!

Im very happy, that i booked the gorilla tracking for me and my family via Gatatu Safaris. Richard proofed, that he is pefect at organizing such a trip in the last minute, even if it seems like it is not possible.
The night before we spent at his lodge "Wild Olives Lodge" and i was very surprised because it was one of the cleanest lodges i've seen by now in uganda and the food was also very good.
All in all we made a great expirience with Gatatu Safaris.

Thank you!

very competent and reliable! We enjoyed our competent guide Kenneth Muhindi!

In preparing the safari Gatatu proved to be very flexible in dealing with our wishes. Everything worked very well as promised. The guide was very competent and engaged to assure, that we could really find embarrassing observations of animals in the park. Accomodation was perfect! We had a good time! Thank you!

Gorilla Tracking Bwindi Impenetrable National Park

Gatatu Safari, especially Richard, gave us an unbelievable experience!
Everything was perfectly organised! We could call and reach Richard at any time. He even picked us up from the Rwanda-Uganda border and drove us around after the Tracking for free (e.g. we could visit Lake Bunyonyi or the market in Kabale). He is very nice and obliging. I can fully recommend Gatatu Safari! It is a small company and there "the customer is king" ;)

Very helpful and reliable agency

We've been tracking the gorillas in August 2014 and we get the permit with the help of Gatatu Safaris. We were 100% satisfied with the service. Richard was very available to understand our needs, and he did a very good job trying to arrange the permit for the day we really wanted (which was not easy, but he did it!). Everything was perfect and good organized, we had a perfect day!

Professional friendly service.

Spontaneous safari

We came to Uganda a bit unprepared so that we booked it (8 days through Uganda, 1999 US$) only fife days before the tour started.
All in all it worked out pretty well. We had the most amazing experiences visiting the Gorillas and having all the other experiences.

The accommodations and the food that was provided three times a day were very good. Being two university students we most likely would have booked less comfortable lodges and hotels and eaten less often and in less expensive restaurants.

The transport was mostly good. We had a very kind and caring driver who even picked us up from Jinja which was an extra two hour drive for him. Unfortunately, the car broke down twice within the eight days which caused some irritation and made us wonder about the State of our car .
Even though they handled both breakdowns pretty good we would have enjoyed a better communication about how it might affect our plans for the day.

In addition to that we would recommend to read the program carefully. At two occasions the guides forgot about smaller activities mentioned on the program.

The payment has been quite stressful for us as we did not bring that much cash to Uganda an the ATMs wouldn’t let us withdraw more than two million a day (of course this a problem that occurred due to our spontaneous booking). Nevertheless, we would have enjoyed to be able to pay with either credit card or by money transfer.

All in all it was a good experience and we would mostly recommend it.

14 Day Luxury Tour of Rwanda and Uganda - Gorillas, Chimps, and Birds

We just returned from the "14 Day Luxury Tour of Rwanda and Uganda -
Gorillas, Chimps, and Birds", offered by Gatatu Safaris, and I want to give
an honest review of our experience with this local Ugandan company. We are
seasoned travelers in our 70's and have traveled extensively with wildlife
companies all over the world. We decided to take a chance booking with
Gatatu Safaris instead of an American company because we really liked the
itinerary they offered since one of us is a wildlife photographer and the
other is an avid bird watcher. Not only was it a good fit for our interests,
it was less expensive for what it offered compared to the American companies
we considered. We were overall pleased with our experience although there
were a few short comings. For example, at the beginning of the tour, our driver did not
have the promised itinerary of daily activities and they were not occurring.
Calls back to the office resolved this situation to a degree.

Since it was advertised as a bird tour, we expected to have professional
bird guides at each of the parks where birding was mentioned as an activity.
This had not been arranged ahead of time, but was handled by our guide "on
the fly", and we were never sure if we would have a bird guide or not, nor
how knowledgeable he would be. Another surprise was the game drives
themselves. The itinerary on the website listed multiple game drives at the
national parks, and this was one of the main reasons we elected to go with
Gatatu Safaris. On our travels, we have always taken game drives in safari
vehicles with pop up tops allowing the occupants to stand up and see clearly
in all directions, but this was not the case with Gatatu. The game drives
were conducted with our driver, Stephen, in the same vehicle used for
transportation between parks, a 1999 vehicle with cramped seating that was
not air-conditioned nor was the fresh air vent working, so we endured many
long, hot drives on Uganda's very bumpy and dusty roads with the windows
open. Stephen was neither a naturalist nor a birder, but he did arrange to
hire bird guides in some of the parks after we got there, and he did arrange
to rent a pop up vehicle for one of the game drives.

One thing that Gatatu Safaris handled very well was changing our
accommodations for the gorilla trekking to a location where they felt like
we would be able to do the trek more easily since we are both in our 70's.
This took a number of phone calls and a talk with the park director, so we
were grateful that they arranged this for us. One thing that could have been
better were the briefings before each day and each activity - what to wear,
how long it would take, do we need water and a hiking stick, etc.

This was advertised as a luxury safari tour, and all of the accommodations
were excellent, the best available in each of the places where we stayed,
so we were pleased with that aspect of our trip.

My recommendation to prospective travelers considering going with Gatatu
Safaris is to agree on a detailed itinerary ahead of time with the company, print
it out, and bring it with you, and be aware that it is a small local Ugandan
company and may lack the polish you expect with a high-end American or
European safari company.

Wonderful experience in Rwanda and Uganda with Gatatu Safaris

We went to Rwanda and Uganda for a private two people Safari (12 days). The communication with the company during the initial inquiry and ongoing preparation of our tailor-made tour war always quick and pleasant. All the luxury suggested accomodations were well managed, clean and breath taking. The driver (Steven) was very friendly, careful and always available when needed. We can highly recommend Richard and his team .