Rushaga community tour
Rushaga community tour: Most visitors who come to Rushaga just visit the mountain gorilla trekking Bwindi end up missing out on other activities the park offers. Travelers to Rushaga can be part of the community tours before or after gorilla trekking in Rushaga, where they will visit the local people and the community. Community tours in Rushaga take you to the communities that are around the region. The communities are occupied mostly by the Batwa pygmies who are known to have stayed in the jungle of Bwindi national park alongside wild animals.
Travelers that are interested in having Rushaga community tours can organize with the tour operators in advance or with the locals while they are on a gorilla trekking Rushaga Bwindi. Rushaga community tours in Bwindi national park come at a fee of $20 which go directly to the local community to support local projects such as weaving, handcrafts, tailoring, and weaving. The community tour to Rushaga is always led by someone from the local community who knows well about the things of long ago.
Rushaga community tour starts with a briefing at the lodge or sector headquarters. The community tour starts with a simple nature walk around the forest where Batwa pygmies used to live before they were evicted by the government to protect mountain gorillas. On your way to the communities near Rushaga, you meet different waterfalls, rivers, animals, birds, plants, and much more.
Still inside Bwindi National park, the Batwa guide will show you the herbs that the Batwa used as local medicine to cure illness and sometimes as perfume. You will then get to know how these Batwa used to survive and the foods they ate while in the jungle. Food includes roots, fruits, honey, and meat from animals. The small animals were killed using bows and arrows and they will teach you how they used to do it.
After some time in the jungle, you will get out and visit a local bar where you will enjoy local drinks made from local foods such as banana. You will continue to their communities where you will visit schools, and then homes where you will meet local people doing their day to day activities such as digging, weeding, and building. You can be part of food preparation like making Bushera which you can taste in the end. You might visit the traditional healers that still use plants as local medicine.
In the end, you will get entertained by the local women through dances and drama which you can as well be part of because they see you as a family but not as tourists. You will listen to their stories of long ago which will help you to know more about them. After the visit, they will escort you while singing for you so that you don’t forget them.
Other things to do in Rushaga
Encountering mountain gorillas: Rushaga sector is s home to the highest number of mountain gorilla families among which include the one that is open for habituation. Tourists to Rushaga can encounter mountain gorillas for 1 hour or 4 hours depending on the permit that was purchased. Gorilla trekking Rushaga Bwindi and habituation ate the most done activities here and they allow tourists to be around mountain gorillas.
Bot5h activities start with a briefing at the sector offices and then armed ranger guides led the trek. The search takes 2-7 hours and when the gorilla family is spotted, trekkers are given 1 or 4 hours to be around the members and this gives them an opportunity to know about their habits, watch the members do daily activities, take photos and watch them do daily activities.
Birding: Bird lovers can visit Rushaga sector of Bwindi gorilla park to encounter most of the bird species that have been so far recorded in the park. Different birding trails have been designed in this sector and it’s the armed ranger guides that will lead you throughout. Birds you are likely to see in Rushaga in Bwindi national park include crested guinea fowl, black crake, scaly francolin, augur buzzard, African grey parrot, ross turaco, common cuckoo, mottled swift, horus swift, yellow bill, red chested cuckoo, speckled tinker bird, greater honeyguide, bar-tailed tragon, narina tragon, and crowned hornbill.
More bird species include mosque swallow, olive woodpecker, lesser honey guide, thick billed honey guide, western nector, little greenbul, equatorial akalat, forest robin, African jacana, black bee-eater, sedge warbler, wood warbler, dusky tit, tit hylia, chin spot batis, banded prinia, grey apalis, swamp flycatcher, tiny sunbird, sooty boubou and common fiscal among others.
