Batwa Trails in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park
Batwa Trails in Mgahinga Gorilla National Park are amazing paths that lead you to the fascinating Batwa people who are ancient people that resisted change and still live in the old days of hunting and gathering food. Visiting the Batwa trails is a quite awesome experience to engage in during your Uganda safari trip in the western region of Uganda. The Batwa trails will need you to walk on foot in order to meet people of the forest who are said to be hunter-gathers and they used to live in the forest with mountain gorillas during those ancient years. You can see the Batwa in person on your tour to Mgahinga gorilla national park and Bwindi impenetrable national park this will be the only solution to marvel in this interesting trails of Batwa. When you meet them you will just recognize them that these are the people who used to live in midst of forest with great apes and you will clearly see the way they dress up and also discover the forest in their eyes and lives.
For you to encounter in the cultural trail in Mgahinga national park, you will have a great opportunity to experience the ancient ways of the Batwa people who once lived within the forest and also adventure their ancient culture. Before Mgahinga national park and Bwindi impenetrable national park were gazetted in 1991, and these Batwa people were the first original inhabitants of the forests .Since Batwa people were forest inhabitant, they used to live in the dense forest on the foothills of Virunga Volcanoes with their comfortable homes where they lived as hunter-gatherers and fierce warriors depending on the forest food, fruit and for them they don’t go to the hospital, they use herbal medicine, food and get cured.
Highlights of the Batwa Trail
The Batwa Trail are an amazing trail that give spectacular viewing of a variety of species while walking in the thick forest of Mgahinga national park that leads you from the base of Muhavura cave. The walk made along here is so fantastic in a way that you get to learn about the Batwa people known as the pygmy’s tribe that used to live in the Mgahinga National park. They are known as the hunter-gatherers and fierce warriors who depended on the forest for shelter, medicine and food which acted as a living museum. Through establishing Mgahinga National park in 1991 Batwa people were chased out of the park and rehabilitated in the villages that surrounded the park.
Why visit Batwa Trail
During the expulsion, the Batwa people were not evicted and were forced into dropping their nomadic and suffering lifestyle. Today, these are some of the suffering Ugandans, of which many of them earn a living from working as porters in the park and the rest work on local farms of other people.
Batwa trails were created to teach visitors about the social lifestyle of these unique people. On your visit to Batwa tails, you will learn about these people how they managed to leave in the forest with wild animals. The walk carried out here can be led by Batwa guides who are well experienced by forest trails and can provide rewardable sights into their traditional forest life and cultures.
However, the Batwa guides can demonstrate their past hunting methods which was a way of gathering honey. The guide is knowledgeable enough to point out the medicinal plants that used to cure them of diseases. Through this trails visitors can be welcomed to the Ngarama Cave, Ngarama cave is home to Batwa king. You can as well engage in their cultural dance which is performed by the community women.
Key facts about the Batwa trails
Ideally, the Batwa people were hunter-gatherers and updates are still hunters, today Batwa people have interesting cultural trails which was launched on 7th June 2011 as way of preserving the Batwa culture and traditions. On top of travelers relishing this conservation culture experience, it has offered employment to Batwa people who participate in the day to day activities in the Batwa trails including the dancers and guides. This means after your incredible gorilla trekking or golden monkey trekking tour in Mgahinga or Bwindi impenetrable national park, you can as well engage in this exciting cultural trail where you will never regret a second of time spent enjoying their amazing cultural dance and a visit is quite worth.
On your visit to Mgahinga national or Bwindi national park, never leave without encountering in Batwa cultural experience and be captivated with lots of amazing things about the Batwa people. And during your visit to their trails, travellers are taken through their original Batwa grass-thatched huts and they are free and willing to demonstrate how they constructed their huts, will also show you the traditional herbs that they used during that ancient time and still uses hunting skills of long ago, teach you how water is fetched while using bamboo mugs or cups, show you the skills used to gather honey and how to make fire by friction while using sticks. Another chance they have is to go back to the forest to act as tour guides for the Batwa trail.
The Batwa trails is quite an interesting trail that runs across the dense forest of Mgahinga National park and goes through the foothills of Mount Gahinga and Mount Muhavura in Mgahinga National park. The Batwa trails begin by pray to small gods asking gods to bless the walk and this is done by the guide who first stops to the gods and kneels down at a certain hut. This is the same point where the men of long ago used to kneel and ask gods for blessing before they could start to marvel into the forest to hunt.
The walk made in Batwa trails brings out the hidden treasures, as you continue with the walk, you also get time to stop in the midst of the forest to pick berries that used to be a meal to the hunters of olden days. Visit their natural pharmacy and see the local herbs got in the forest. The guides will teach you about different plants and roots that Batwa used as medicine to stop breeding even cure wounds, blood pressure plus other diseases. What you may take as a useless thing, these people take plants of this forest as an important thing about their health. And what seems to be a wild yellow fruit or plant, for them they see it as a delicious vegetable source.
These are friendly people and on one who visits Mgahinga or Bwindi leave without visiting the Batwa cultural trails because this is a quite memorable experience that you can engage in during your amazing gorilla trekking experience in one of these national parks. And besides these gorgeous activities, the showcase includes honey gathering harvesting skills, hunting skills, demonstration of making bamboo cups, visit to the natural pharmacy, walk made to sacred Ngarama cave. Your visit to Batwa cultural trails will support a community and improve their standard of living through your funds and worth tom be encountered in.
