Mgahinga National Park emerges third in Must Photograph competition for 2019

By George Mangula

A global review of Facebook posts commissioned by Huawei on the occasion of launching their latest smart phone, brought about some astonishing results.

Uganda, often referred to as the Pearl of Africa, emerged third, and the location named was Mgahinga National Park, one of two gorilla habitats in the country.

Colombo in Sri Lanka topped the list, and Yokohama in Japan, came in as runner-up, but no one can argue that Uganda’s third place was well deserved, a destination for long underestimated and certainly undersold and under marketed in the past. Fourth was the German Spa city of Baden Baden, followed by Old San Juan in Puerto Rico in fifth place.

Meanwhile, Victoria Falls came in sixth – thought to be ranking higher and was followed in the top ten by Kartapur in Pakistan, the Wadi Rum in the Kingdom of Jordan, the Icy Straight in Alaska, USA, and finally the Isle of Harris in Scotland.

Analysts say Uganda’s third position is a big boost for its tourism industry which hopes that under a new regime at the helm of the Uganda Tourism Board the internal negativity can finally be overcome and progress be made to put the country not only on the global map but finally reach its full potential.

Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, located in south western Uganda, sits high in the clouds, at an altitude of between 2,227m and 4,127m.

According to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the park has about 39 mammals of these including the mountain gorillas, buffaloes and elephants, and also the endangered golden monkeys.

Other species in the park include giant forest hogs, bushbucks, leopards, spotted hyenas, black fronted duikers among others. It also has around 79 bird species.

However, in the park there is only one group that is tracked, which is the Nyakagezi gorilla group.

The park is 510km away from Kampala, the capital of Uganda and you can get there by road or air. On road, it is approximately a 9-10 hours drive from Kampala to Mgahinga, that is around 8 hours to Kabale town covering 434km and there are more 76km to Kisoro town, this route is tarmacked and a bit mountainous and steep.