Things to Do in Uganda in May

This is the single best reason to fly to Uganda. May is quietly clever. The forest drips, mossy and loud with cicadas. Gorillas stay where they always stay. The trade-off is mud. Trails get slippery. Treks feel harder than in dry months. The payoff is an empty briefing point at Buhoma or Rushaga. You sit unhurried metres from a silverback while rain taps the canopy. Lower-altitude sectors stay cooler. Gorillas often feed closer to trail edges in wet weather.

May rains swell the Victoria Nile. Jinja's grade-five rapids run full and muscular. The water is warm. Banks become green walls of elephant grass. The rapids roar long before you see them. Low season means you raft with a handful of others, not a peak-season convoy. Mornings stay drier and calmer than afternoons. Get up early. If big rapids scare you, the same stretch offers gentler kayaking and sunset boat cruises to the spot where the Nile starts its 6,650 km (4,130 mile) journey north.

May paints Queen Elizabeth's savanna vivid green. The Kazinga Channel swells. A boat cruise glides past hundreds of hippos grunting in the shallows. Elephants march down to drink under skies that flip from blazing sun to bruised storm clouds within an hour. This is prime time for Ishasha's famous tree-climbing lions draped in fig branches. They climb more in cooler, wetter air. Game viewing demands more patience than in the dry season. The light stays dramatic. You will rarely queue at a sighting.

This is an easy half-day from Entebbe and one of May's top experiences. You glide in a low wooden canoe through narrow papyrus channels. The only sounds are paddle dips and weaverbird chatter. Then your guide points. There it stands. A shoebill, grey and still, with a bill like a wooden clog. May's high water and nesting season make sightings more reliable than in the bone-dry months. The swamp buzzes with jacanas, malachite kingfishers, and pied kingfishers hovering above the water.

Kibale holds one of Africa's densest chimpanzee populations. Tracking them in May means walking a forest that is loud, wet, and electric with life. The hoot and pant-scream of chimps somewhere ahead pulls you through dripping undergrowth. Suddenly the group is overhead, knuckle-walking and grooming in the branches. Wet trails are muddy but the canopy is full of fruit. This keeps the chimps active and lower in the trees. Pair it with a morning walk in the neighbouring Bigodi Wetland for red colobus and turacos.

Rainy-season afternoons are good for digging into Kampala's food culture. This is half the reason people fall for Uganda. Start at the chaotic, covered alleys of St. Balikuddembe (Owino) Market. The smell of dried fish, roasting groundnuts, and ripe matooke hangs thick in the humid air. The street-corner Rolex is a fresh chapati rolled around fried eggs, tomato and onion, griddled in front of you. It is the city's signature snack. It tastes best from a busy roadside cart where the vendor never stops cooking. Round out the day at the Ndere Cultural Centre for an evening of drumming and dance. Or visit the Uganda Museum for context on the kingdoms that shaped the country.