This tour focuses on the observation of the world's only two habituated families of Western lowland gorillas, as well as of wild gorillas and of Africa’s highest densities of forest elephants. It is a true adventure and unique wildlife experience - only a handful of visitors make it each year to Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo and Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic.
Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo and Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central Africa Republic preserve what are among the most beautiful, accessible rain forests in Africa, and the last of their kind on the planet.

These remote Congo Basin parks are home to diverse wildlife such as Forest elephants, Western lowland gorillas, Forest buffaloes, sitatunga and bongo antelopes, Giant forest hogs, numerous monkey species, leopards and a long list of endemic birds, including the African grey parrot. Nowhere else in Central Africa is there such a high probability of seeing all this wildlife in one place.

While wildlife research in the parks is an important focus, Nouabale-Ndoki and Dzanga-Ndoki also provide Africa's newest and most adventurous wildlife experiences for intrepid travelers – access to the world's only habituated Western lowland gorilla silverbacks and their harems; Central Africa's highest concentrations of Forest elephants; and the Ba'Aka, the Central African indigenous people who serve as gorilla trackers and who are the cornerstones of the gorilla habituation programs.

Mistral Airlines flies Thursday and Sunday between Brazzaville and Ouesso. Air Congo flies Monday and Friday. This is the current internal airline schedule and is subject to change without notice. 
Arrival Brazzaville: You are met at the airport, helped through immigration and transferred to a hotel of three star standard for overnight. Hotel upgrades are available. Guests can also arrive two nights before safari departure.

Day One: Fly Brazzaville – Ouesso. Transfer via motorized pirogue to Bomassa, Nouabale-Ndoki National Park headquarters for overnight. This can take seven + hours; it depends on the size of the pirogue, motor available that day, and river conditions. It can also mean a very late arrival into Bomassa if Air Congo or Mistral have been delayed leaving Brazzaville. 

Day Two: Transfer to Mbeli Camp via road (45 minutes) and pirogue (90 minutes). Afternoon at the observation platform, a 45 minute walk from Mbeli Camp, where it is hoped to sight wild western lowland gorillas. Overnight at Mbeli Camp.

Day Three: Full day at Mbeli Bai observation tower. Overnight at Mbeli Camp. 

Day Four: Transfer to Mondika Camp via pirogue (90 minutes), road (30 mins) and on foot (2 hours). Some flooded swamp to cross. Afternoon in camp. Overnight Mondika Camp.

Day Five: Visit habituated gorilla family at Mondika. Forest walks in the afternoon, or relaxing in camp with the Ba'Aka trackers.  Overnight at Mondika Camp. 

Day Six: Return to Bomassa, park headquarters for lunch. Transfer via motorized pirogue to Lidjombo, Central African Republic border post for immigration formalities. Continue on to Bayanga. This trip can take between three to six hours depending upon the pirogue available. Overnight at one of two available lodges near Dzangha-Ndoki NP.

Day Seven: Drive to trailhead in park, 1 ½ hours. Walk to Dzanga Bai viewing platform, 45 minutes. Remain at tower to observe elephants which come to mine for minerals in the saline clearing. You might also see sitatunga antelope, giant forest hogs, forest buffalo, monkey species, and flocks of African Grey parrots. Depart the viewing platform before 16:00 to return to vehicles and the return drive to the lodge.

Day Eight: Drive to Bai Houkou research center in the park, 1 ½ hours drive. Trek to see habituated gorilla family in the am and a mangabey primate troop in the afternoon. 

Day Nine: Net hunting with the Ba’Aka people in the morning. You will also learn about medicinal plant collecting from the Ba'Aka women. The rest of the day is for exploring on your own. There are some guided walks available in the vicinity of Sangha Lodge. 

Day Ten: After breakfast, pirogue to Bomassa, a two to three hour trip. Arrive in time for lunch. Take a guided walk to Wali Bai near Bomassa headquarters. Overnight in Bomassa.

Day Eleven: Travel by pirogue to Ouesso for overnight in a simple hotel, the best standard available. There is time to explore Ouesso's market. 

Day Twelve: Fly to Brazzaville. Depart for home in the evening on AF or overnight in Brazzaville and depart the following day.

• This program works with a Thursday departure from Brazzaville & a Monday return which fits best with Air France's schedule of Monday, Wednesday & Friday night flights in and out of Brazzaville. 
• It also works with a Monday departure from Brazzaville & a Friday return. Because there are internal flights four days a week now, we are allowed greater freedom of program options.
• It can also be shortened by one day without impacting the tour too much for a Thursday departure from Brazzaville and a Sunday return. With this option, Day Ten becomes a long travel day between Bayanga in the CAR back to Ouesso for overnight with a break in Bomassa for lunch only.

Accompanied by guide, cost per person sharing
Sangha Lodge (CAR):
8 pax = €4170
7 pax = €4265
6 pax = €4390
5 pax = €4565
4 pax = € 4550
3 pax = €4930
2 pax = €5410
1 pax = €7540 (inclusive of single supplement at Nouabale-Ndoki NP of €167)

Using Doli Lodge (CAR):
8 pax = €4375
7 pax = €4470
6 pax = €4600
5 pax = €4772
4 pax = € 4755
3 pax = €5250
2 pax = €5615
1 pax = €8144 (inclusive of single supplement at Nouabale-Ndoki NP of €400)

Foreign Tour Guides:
€2833 per guideat Sangha Lodge
€2918 per guide at Doli Lodge
If there is a foreign tour guide along, the maximum number of guests should be seven.

Tour includes:  Accommodation in Brazzaville, on a bed and breakfast basis, single room, accommodation in Ouesso, the best available, internal flights Brazzaville – Ouesso – Brazzaville, park fees in ROC and CAR, mandatory village development fees in the ROC, english & french speaking CWA guide (unless requested otherwise), letters of invitation for visas, airport Assistance x 4, hotel transfers in Brazzaville and Ouesso, room and full board while on safari, single status, NNNP activities: Mbeli Bai mirador and Mondika Camp gorilla trekking, DSNP: Dzangha Bai, Bai Houkou (habituated gorillas and mangabeys), half day activities with Ba'Aka, all transportation via motorized pirogue and 4 x 4 once safari commences, forest guides in the parks, porters & drinking Water

Excludes:  International Flights, Visas to ROC and CAR, Gratuities for CWA guide and trackers, drinks other than water, additional nights in Brazzaville if international flights are missed. 

If you wish to travel wihtout a guide please contact us for costs and further details.

Visitor Facts:

• Single rooms are available upon request but may not be available.
• It is very possible to be delayed in either direction by local airlines. This impacts the tour most if the delay is returning to Brazzaville to make the departing international flight. Guests may be required to pay additional nights in Brazzaville hotels if their international flight is missed. MTT/CWA prefers to inform its guests of this possibility rather than to build contingency costs into the tour which may not be used.
• All guests are accompanied by Brazzaville-based Max Bwily unless they request to travel alone. 
• Languages catered for: English, French, Spanish, Lingala; working knowledge of Sanjo and Ba'Aka
• Visas required in advance for ROC and CAR
• CWA guests are furnished with letters of invitation which are required in order to apply for a visa from a ROC and CAR embassy abroad.
• Proof of yellow fever vaccination is required for entry to both ROC and CAR. International health certificates are checked upon arrival in Brazzaville.
• All visitors must furnish proof of a negative TB test administered within six months of arrival at NNNP. Proof of vaccination against yellow fever, polio (if for the first time, administered no less than eight months before arrival) and measles is also required. There will be no exceptions. Gorillas are highly susceptible to human diseases. 
• It is strongly recommended that all visitors are vaccinated against tetanus, and hepatitis A and B.
• If guests arrive ill, or show any symptoms of illness (colds, flu, cough, diarrhoea, etc), they are not allowed to visit the habituated gorillas and may be barred from Mbeli Bai observation platform as well. 
• All visitors are supplied masks to place over their nose and mouths when visiting the habituated gorillas and they must maintain a distance from the animals of seven meters. This is strictly enforced. 
• Typically two guests at a time visit the habituated gorillas. Viewing time is one hour. There are no exceptions. 
• Children under the age of fifteen years are not permitted to observe the habituated gorillas at NNNP.
• Instructionson how to behave while in the forest and while observing gorillas are furnished to all participants before travel
• Special diets other than vegetarian cannot be catered for.

• Air France: flies Paris – Brazzaville – Paris: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
• Ethiopian flies Addis – Brazzaville – Addis: every day except Tuesdays, and London Heathrow and Paris de Gaulle to Addis several times weekly.
• Interair flies Johannesburg – Brazzaville: Monday, Thursday; and  Brazzaville – Johannesburg: Wednesday and Friday
• Kenyan Airways flies Nairobi – Brazzaville: Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday

Airline schedules are subject to change.        

Important Additional Facts for Visitors

Physical Fitness: This is a very active safari. When it comes to gorilla trekking, the habituated gorilla groups may be 30 minutes walk from the camp or three hours. You will not know until you arrive at the starting point. In Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the ROC, it is a two to three hour walk just to arrive at the starting point for a gorilla follow. The forest treks are not arduous in terms of elevation gain or loss. The terrain is for the most part flat so all that is really required is stamina. There are also patches of swamp to wade through and stretches of river to cross. This requires wearing rubber shoes. The park's other attractions are the bais, saline clearings in the middle of the forest which attract elephants, buffalo, sitatunga and bongo antelope, and gorilla. Accessing these bais requires more walking, which is why we spend all day at the observation towers which have been built overlooking the forest clearings.
Respect for Quiet: The ability to remain quiet -as you walk through the forest and for the long hours that you spend on the observation platforms - is a requirement of this tour. The trackers and guides enforce silence. Scientists on the platforms work in silence too. (Your days here offer you the opportunity to experience a researcher’s life.) Wildlife conservation in Central Africa has supplanted a long tradition of hunting. Animals have long ago learned to fear man. The trackers who now habituate gorillas or who escort us through the forest, ever vigilant about spotting elephants, once hunted them. If we talk on the observation platforms the wildlife will leave the clearing. If we are noisy in the forest we risk startling gorillas and elephants. We need to be quiet as we walk through the forest so that our trackers can do their job and avoid any distressing man-wildlife confrontations.  
Elephants: There are large numbers of elephants in these forests and there is always the chance that we encounter them. Our forest guides are unarmed. We are briefed before entering the forest to always stay close, remain quiet, and follow our guide’s instructions at all times.
Annoyances: Primary rainforest is extremely humid. It can cool down dramatically at night but during the day, it is hot. There are also insects with which to deal—most of them of them harmless but annoying nevertheless, like the little sweat bees. Not so hard to ignore are tsetse flies, ticks, and the large biting army ants. A rainforest is arguably nature at its most indomitable. If you stand stationary long enough it attempts to break you down into leaf litter! 
Accommodations and Food: In Congo’s case, the accommodations are decidedly no-frills. At Mbeli Camp, we share raised wooden chalets with toilet and bathing areas below. At Mondika Camp, we share tents with separate ablution blocks. In Congo too, the majority of food is tinned and while vegetarians won't have any problems, any special diets other than vegetarian are difficult if next to impossible to accommodate. Meals and accommodations are not the highlights of travel to this remote part of Africa.   

 
Travel Rewards

• Rare Forests and Wildlife: The tropical forests of the Congo Basin comprise the world’s largest rainforests after those of the Amazon Basin. They are therefore among the last of their kind on the planet. Delayed flights and bumpy roads notwithstanding, this remote area is now accessible. And if location alone makes it a rare travel experience, by extension so must be the wildlife that is found there. The Central African Republic has some of the highest densities of forest elephants and western lowland gorillas in Africa. At Mbeli Bai in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, there may be three separate families of gorillas feeding peacefully. Sixteen gorilla families along with ten solitary silverbacks, amounting to some 150 animals, are known to come to Mbeli to feed on its nutritional plants, and the researchers know every last one of them. Then there are Kingo and Boka, the habituated gorilla patriarchs of Nouabale-Ndoki. To meet them and their families is to understand that you are now inextricably wrapped up in their fate. Habituated in the interests of science, they have been made vulnerable by their trust of man. A sustainable tourism program is the best answer to ensuring their survival once the science is complete. Tourists also bring the revenue to better the lives of local people, without whom conservation efforts would fail. It is easier to keep wildlife alive if men who hunted in the past for their livelihood earn a salary guiding you through the forest.
  Culture: These forests are the ancestral homes of Ba’Aka pygmies, traditionally hunters and gatherers, who have been integral to the establishment of conservation efforts. The Ba’Aka are the cornerstone of the tourism program. Without their knowledge of the forest and its wildlife, the gorilla habituation program wouldn’t exist. Every time we enter the forest we are escorted by a Ba’Aka guide.
  It is inevitable that challenges to travel to the Congo Basin will decrease as they develop. The interest shown in this area and its wildlife is growing. Nouabale has opened a chimpanzee research and ultimate habituation program a six hour hike from Mbeli Bai, which may become another park activity in the future. Meanwhile, to spend time in these parks now is to understand that you are paying for the privilege, only a few of you at a time, to enter a remote, pristine rainforest to experience one of Africa’s most recent wildlife opportunities—and not for the five-star luxuries your per diem can provide you elsewhere.
 

Guidelines for Forest/Gorilla Trekking

• Obey your guide at all times.
• Never step in front of your tracker or guide.
• Walk in single file in the forest and maintain a short distance from the person in front of you.
• Avoid sudden movements.
• Do not speak. If necessary, use a low voice or whisper.
• Do not point at gorillas.
• Never run, shout or scream around gorillas.
• If a gorilla shows aggression (barks, screams or charges), it is important that you do not move. This may be interpreted by the gorilla as aggression.
• Do not look a gorilla silverback in the eye. This can be interpreted as aggression.
• Keep a distance of seven metres from a gorilla to minimize the risk of disease transmission.
• Do not touch a gorilla if it comes close.
• Step away slowly if a curious young gorilla comes too close.
• If you must sneeze, turn away and cover your nose and mouth with your shirt.
• Do not use flashes while filming or photographing gorillas.
• Do not leave litter in the forest.
• Do not eat in the forest.
• Do not leave human feces in the forest.
• Do not smoke in the forest.
• On rare occasions visitors can encounter elephants and buffaloes in the forest and must be prepared to run on the instructions of their tracker or guide. Please evaluate your physical capability to do so before entering the forest.
• If you are allergic to insect stings, please carry your own emergency medicines. Inform your guide before entering the forest if you are highly allergic to bees and other stinging insects.
 
              

Terms and conditions for booking

• A 30% non-refundable deposit is payable at confirmation of booking
• Balance of 70% payable 56 days before commencement
• 60% Refund for cancellation 42 - 56 days prior to commencement
• 50% Refund for cancellation 28 - 42 days prior to commencement
• Cancellation within 28 days subject to full forfeiture
• Payment of deposit implies acceptance of terms and conditions
• Cancellation must be made in writing to Brothers Safaris
• An administration fee of ZAR 500-00 per person will be charged for amendments made after confirmation
• Brothers Safaris reserves the right to use a similar lodge/hotel if the intended lodge/hotel is not available, this may affect pricing
• The itinerary costing is subject to availability and currency fluctuations
• Terms and Conditions are subject to change without notice

Please Note

• Emergency medical care equivalent to Western standards is unavailable in Northern Congo. The WCS has an emergency evacuation plan in place but it will take time to enact. Northern Congo is very remote. It is imperative that all tour participants consider themselves healthy and physically fit and tell the truth about any physical issues, past or present, should they exist, on their booking forms.  A great deal of walking is required for travel to these parks. Travel insurance which covers trip cancellation as well as health and emergency evacuation is essential. Proof of such travel insurance is required by MTT Inc/CWA before participants arrive in the Republic of Congo.
• Special diets other than vegetarian cannot be catered for. l.
• All visitors are supplied masks to place over their noses and mouths when visiting the habituated gorillas. They must maintain a distance from the animals of seven meters. This is strictly enforced.
• Typically two guests at a time visit the habituated gorillas. Viewing time is one hour. There are no exceptions.
• Children under the age of fifteen years are not permitted to observe the habituated gorillas at NNNP.
• Instructions on how to behave while in the forest and while observing gorillas are furnished to all participants before travel.