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About Cgorilla
We’re a small Ugandan tour operator built around one belief: the people who grew up around Bwindi run the best trips into it.
Cgorilla started in 2014 when our founder, Charles, came back from a season of guiding for a foreign-owned operator and noticed something simple: the best trips were still being designed by people who had never set foot in Bwindi.
We started with one Land Cruiser and a hand-built spreadsheet of permit availability. A decade on, we run hand-crafted gorilla trekking and safari trips for travellers from forty countries — and every guide, driver, and cook on our team is Ugandan.
We’re licensed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority and members of the Association of Uganda Tour Operators. We pay our trackers and porters above the regional standard, and we publish our pricing because we’ve never been comfortable with the alternative.
We hold confirmed UWA gorilla permits for every booked trip before we collect a deposit. No optimistic dates, no last-minute family swaps.
Every guide, driver, and cook on our payroll is Ugandan and earns a fair living wage. We post our porter and ranger tipping standards openly.
Maximum eight guests per departure. We keep groups small so the gorilla hour, the cruise, and the lodge feel like yours — not a bus tour's.
All prices are listed inclusive of permits, park fees, accommodation, and meals. The only common extras are international flights, your visa, insurance, and tips — and we say so up front.
Charles Kalyango
Founder & lead guide
Born in Buhoma, on the edge of Bwindi. Twelve years guiding gorilla treks, ten of them as a UWA-accredited senior guide. Quiet on the trail, encyclopedic on great-ape behaviour.
charles@birdnestresort.comSarah N.
Trip designer
Builds itineraries that don't blur together. If your group has someone with bad knees and someone with three cameras, Sarah's the one who plans around both.
David K.
Driver-guide
Grew up in Kasese, knows every pothole between Kampala and Bwindi. Speaks Runyankole, Rukiga, Luganda, English, and the language of stuck Land Cruisers.
Joan B.
Operations & permits
The reason your trek dates always work out. Holds permits early, calls UWA personally, and answers WhatsApp at 6am.
Conservation
UWA reinvests the bulk of permit revenue into ranger salaries, anti-poaching patrols, and community-revenue sharing schemes around Bwindi and Mgahinga. Mountain gorillas are no longer critically endangered — they’re the only great ape whose population is rising. That progress is paid for by trips like yours.