Tour Highlights
Day 1: Transfer to Akagera National Park and afternoon game drive
Day 2: Transfer to Nyungwe Forest National Park and cultural tour
Day 3: Chimpanzee trekking and visit Lake Kivu boat cruise
Day 4: Transfer to volcanoes national park
Day 5: Gorilla trekking and transfer back to Kigali
ITINERARY
Day 1: Akagera national park
Our tour guide will pick you from your hotel and your adventure begins with a drive to Akagera National Park, with a 15-minute stop at Rwamagana market. The drive to Rwamagana is about 1 hour and 20 minutes. After having an African local market experience, you will then have a drive for 1 and 1/2 hours to Akagera National Park, check in at your lodge and then have your lunch, before embarking on the thrilling game drive. This park is known as a gem of Rwanda. Its landscape is so stunning and the thrilling game drive gives you an opportunity to see some of the Big Five and other animals including elephants, buffalos, giraffes, impalas, topis, zebras, bush bucks, African swallows, eland, monkeys, warthogs, baboons, mongoose, hippos, crocodiles and many more. After the game drive you will then embark on a 1-hour boat ride on Lake Ihema. The lake supports a range of aquatic fauna including Nile crocodiles, hippos and others including elephants and buffalos that gather at the banks in order to drink water. You will return to the lodge for dinner and overnight stay.
Accommodation
Luxury: Ruzizi Tented Lodge
Midrange: Akagera Game Lodge
Budget: Dereva Hotel
Day 2: Cultural stops and Nyungwe
Following an early morning breakfast at your lodge, you will then embark on your journey to Nyungwe National Park with 3-hour drive to Ahazaza Cultural Center as the first stop. The center has a farm, school and entertainment center. This stop will give you an insight of how the tourism industry and arts industry is able to give back to the community. It will be a 30-minute stop before embarking on an hour drive to Nyanza to enjoy a hot meal for lunch and the Cultural Heritage Corridor of Rwanda including a visit the King’s Palace for about 20 minutes and the Ethnographic Museum which is about 30 minutes’ drive from the King’s palace. The museum is the largest and boasts of some of the best ethnographic and archaeological collections in East Africa, and these are more than 10,000 artifacts. The tour guides will share this history, insights of not only pre-colonial times but also the development curve of Rwanda and its cultural history. You will spend 30 minutes at the museum and then proceed to Nyungwe National Park which is a home to what is believed to be one of Africa’s oldest, and one of the world’s most beautiful and pristine mountain rainforests. The drive to Nyungwe is about an hour and 40 minutes. On reaching the park, you will check in, have dinner and have an overnight stay.
Accommodation
Luxury: Nyungwe Forest Lodge
Midrange: Nyungwe Top View Hotel
Budget: Gisakura Guest House
Day 3: Nyungwe Forest National Park and Lake Kivu
You will have an early morning breakfast and after head for chimpanzee trekking. The thrilling experience of trekking chimpanzees in the Nyungwe forest is quite demanding physically but highly rewarding. The splendid activity will take about 1 to 2 hours and is done under the guidance of an experienced ranger who will lead your through the slippery trails, hills and the swampy areas of the park in search of chimpanzees. Nyungwe offers a unique chance to view other primate species such as the L’Hoest’s monkey, Angola colobus, golden monkeys, vervet monkeys and even the rare Silver monkey, red-tailed monkey, among others. After the trek, you will get a chance to rest to your lodge just enough to get ready lunch before you embark on the canopy walk way in the ordinary tropical forest that will give you an excitement that can hardly be compared by anything else. Set about 50 meters above the forest floor, you will enjoy the sights of the fantastic birds that fly across as you enjoy the walk. This almost 100 meter long canopy walk way also gives a unique face to face meetings with the butterflies, birds and the monkeys which are there prominent sightings here. This walk takes about 2 hours and after you will be on the road again to Lake Kivu. A drive to Lake Kivu will be about 2 and 1/2 hours. The shore of Lake Kivu provide beautiful views and activities on the lake. You will relax by boat ride and swimming in the lake before transferring back to your lodge for dinner and overnight stay
Accommodation
Luxury: Lake Kivu Serena Hotel
Midrange: Belvedere Hotel
Budget: Palm Beach Resort
Day 4: Musanze caves and Volcanoes national park
After breakfast, you will embark on a 2 hour and 40-minute drive to Ruhengeri where the Musanze caves are situated. The caving adventure takes about 1 hour. With the reception at the foothills of volcanoes mountain the beautiful sight is a glimpse of what lies ahead, and the drive to the caves is about 30 minutes. You will be given gear to dress up in and a torch. The caves are famous for the features therein and the bats of so many types, including the exotic fruit bats. There is no light in these caves and you have to use the head light on the helmets all the time. After the caving experience you will go to Volcanoes National Park for check in at your lodge and have lunch. You will then go to the park headquarters where you will be before starting the adventure into the forest. You are given 1 hour to spend with the gorillas as they enjoy their natural habitat while you take beautiful pictures. The gorilla tracking experience will take between 2 to 3 hours and then you will return to you lodge for dinner and your overnight stay.
Please note that we recommend rabies shots for those participating in the cave experience.
Accommodation
Luxury: Five Volcanoes Boutique Hotel
Midrange: Le Bambou Gorilla Lodge
Budget: Virunga Lodge
Day 5: Kigali
After a leisurely breakfast at the lodge, you will then embark on your journey back to your hotel in Kigali or to the airport for your flight back home.
ACTIVITIES
Kigali City
Lush hillsides, flowering trees and bustling streets make up one of the most enchanting cities of East Africa. Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, sprawls across numerous hills, ridges and valleys, and has a vibrant restaurant and nightlife scene. To begin or end a tour in Rwanda, Kigali is a great place to consider as it is conveniently located in the geographic center of the country. The city is clean and safe, with extremely welcoming people and a population of about one million. Travelers will enjoy exploring the great cultural activities – including several award-winning museums, the burgeoning music scene, and some of East Africa’s most memorable dining experiences.
The most compelling visit in Kigali is undoubtedly the Genocide Memorial, part shrine, located atop mass graves, and a museum, with displays, archival documents, photos, video footage and weapons detailing the Rwandan genocide.
The city is full of cultural and historic spots including Kigali Cultural Center, and it offers immersive shopping experience in the local markets. One of the popular markets is the vast warehouse complex known as Kimironko Market. This is the busiest and most popular market in town with vendors selling wares from all over Rwanda as well as East, Central and West Africa. You will find souvenirs and crafts for rock-bottom prices and swathes of kitenge fabric that can be transformed into unique clothing by the market’s on-site seamstresses. Kimironko is also a market place for the local Rwandans with different sections selling colorful fruit and vegetables, clothing, home supplies and pungent meat and seafood. It’s chaotic, loud and often overwhelming, but the kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and smells serves as an authentic insight into everyday life in Kigali.
The city’s Caplaki Crafts Village offers art and crafts inspiration. It has stalls selling traditional handicrafts, including woodcarvings and woven baskets. But for an authentic and untapped potential of art in Rwanda, Inema Arts Center is the place to visit. Inema is a beacon in Rwanda for cultivating creative expression, being a collective of Rwandan creative artists providing space for 10 artists in residence to explore their creative talent. These specialize in contemporary African Arts, Crafts, Music and Dance. Inema's artists produce paintings, sculptures, and mixed media expressions are showcased in the Gallery at Inema Arts Center which is truly a sight worth seeing. Other studios include Ivuka Studio and Uburanga Studio.
Akagera National park
Akagera National Park is located in eastern Rwanda overlooking the savannah plains of Tanzania. The park, the only protected savannah region of the country, shelters a range of lakes including Lake Ihema – the second largest in Rwanda – as well as Rwanyakizinga, Shakani, Mihindi and Gishanju lakes which together combine the largest wetland system in the whole of Central Africa.
Following the end of the Rwandan Genocide, the national park was depleted, with returning refugees using trees for timber and wild life for food—lions were hunted to extinction, as were rhinos, biodiversity was almost completely ruined and tourism and local commerce disappeared.
The park has recovered remarkably, so much so that in 2017 witnessed the return of black rhinos for the first time and after the reintroduction of lions, their population is now also on the increase. With strict anti-poaching monitoring in effect, elephants, buffaloes and leopards have also been spotted again, with a growing population of monkeys as well.
The park offers the traditional suite of savannah safari experience, with game drive and lake adventures, boat cruises and birding and nature walks. Bathing in the waters is strictly forbidden, as the lake is home to some of the largest concentrations of hippos in East Africa.
Nyungwe Forest National Park
Located in the south western part of Rwanda, near the Burundi border in the south and Lake Kivu and the Democratic Republic of Congo on the west, Nyungwe’s unique biodiversity was recognized by the German colonial power as early as 1903. The area experienced a succession of protection and destruction, including the time of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide when the Uwinka research facilities were destroyed. Restoration began in 1995, with the area declared a national park in 2005.
The national park covers just over 1000 square kilometers, which is about two-thirds of the size of London metropolitan area, and has an elevation of 1600-2950 meters above sea level. It is the largest tropical rainforest in East and Central Africa, with extensive precipitation year round and home to Rwanda’s largest water catchment area, feeding major rivers, including the Congo. The park is home to about 75 mammals, around 300 bird species and several hundred species of flora.
The national park is a hiker’s paradise, with 13 hiking trails extending to 130 kilometers through the forest. Visitors can spend a week covering the many trails encountering rare species of mammals including chimpanzees and various monkeys. Visitors with no fear of heights must not miss out on the Nyungwe Canopy Walk, about 50 meters above the ground and almost 100 meters in length, providing a unique vista for observing the forest and the monkey population in particular. The place is also ideal for bird watching, many of which may only be spotted in the park.
Volcanoes National Park
Volcanoes National Park is a must-stop call for all Rwanda gorilla safaris, sheltering the highest number of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Conservation Area, spanning a 160 square kilometer area. Situated in northwestern Rwanda, this park has become the world’s most popular mountain gorilla sanctuary. With fewer than 700 of this species left, tourists can catch a rare glimpse of the gorillas as they can nowhere else in the world.
It was made famous as the research base of the late American primatologist Diane Fossey, who spearheaded the conservation campaign of the mountain gorillas and mobilized resources to fight against poaching in this area and, subsequently, as the setting for the film “Gorillas in the Mist”. The park continues to uphold its reputation as a destination for unrivaled wildlife encounters.
Visitors can follow one of the park’s ten habituated gorilla families as they go about their daily lives in troops. The gorillas may be feeding from the ground resting, moving around or up in the trees playing about in the branches. You will get to see the mothers tenderly feeding and tending to their young one while the younger gorillas frolic in the bushes around her. Also experience the majestic and authoritative silverbacks get up and move around showing control over the territory, keeping a protective eye. Once your group finds the gorilla family the clock starts ticking. You are advised to stay quiet, move slowly and avoid sudden movements in order not to irritate the gorillas. Instead, sit down and avoid looking directly into the eyes of the gorillas as this may also irritate them thinking that you want to fight them. In the unlikely event that he begins charging at you, hold your ground but lower your eyes to indicate that you do not want a confrontation, but rather you are submissive. The most important thing is to stay near your guide and follow instructions.
The park offers some of the Rwanda’s most spectacular scenery, diverse vegetation and dense forest canopy with a breathtaking view of the volcanoes peaks. There are five extinct volcanoes: Muhabura, Sabyinyo, Gahinga, Karisimbi and Bisoke, which also provide home to golden monkeys, bush duikers, spotted hyena, elephants, buffaloes and bushbuck, in addition to the famed gorillas. The park also harbors nearly 200 bird species including more than two dozen local to the Rwenzori mountains and the Virungas.
Other activities to do in Volcanoes national park include volcano climbing, cultural tours especially to Iby’Iwacu Cultural Village, bird watching, visiting the twin lakes of Bulera and Buhondo, among others.
GET OFFER
Please complete the following form so we can send you a personalized price!
SAFARI INCLUSIONS
Safari includes:
Transportation in a Tour Van/Landcruiser.
Service of an English-Speaking tour guide/Driver.
All activities mentioned in the itinerary
One Gorilla permit per person
One Chimpanzee permit per person
Park admissions
Accommodation on Full Board.
Entrance fees to all destinations as per the program.
Transfers to and from Airport/Kigali
Free WIFI for the entire trip
Safari Excludes:
All activities not mentioned in the program
International flights
Visas
Personal effects of any nature
Hotel fees before and after the safari