Rwanda

A visit to Rwanda is a truly encouraging experience. You quickly see why it was called “the land of a thousand hills” as the excellent road network wends its way through magnificent mountain scenery. This is one of the most densely populated lands in Africa and every square foot of mountain and valley is carefully used for agriculture creating a vast patchwork of terraced fields. 

Seeing that the future of the country has to lie in technology, hundreds of miles of  fibre optic cable is being laid linking every major village and town to the internet. Thousands of people are being trained in administration and management to the plan that Rwanda will become the administrative and business centre for East Africa. The Government has worked tirelessly to unify the country following the terrible genocide of the mid 1990s, and people’s positive forward looking attitude shows that this is working.

Rwanda is the perfect location for a gorilla safari. The Parc National des Volcans is just three hours comfortable ride through magnificent scenery, and Sabinyo Lodge is a luxurious well run base for tracking the rare mountain gorillas. Groups of six people track six different gorilla families each day and you are assigned to track a particular family based on your level of fitness and how far that family is from the starting point. In this way athletic people can enjoy the challenge of trekking four hours through the rain forest, while those seeking a less arduous experience might walk less than an hour. You are almost guaranteed to find the mountain gorillas and can enjoy an encounter you’ll never forget, spending a full hour watching a huge silverback, females and baby gorillas.

Don’t forget to spend a morning with the golden monkeys! These hilarious creatures rush about in the bamboo forests almost in touching distance, and you can see them chewing bamboo shoots, squabbling and playing.   These are the world’s only colony of golden monkeys, and they inhabit the same forested terrain of the mountain gorillas.

For a few day’s relaxation, try the Lake Kivu Serena hotel which is just two hours from the gorillas, overlooking the beautiful Lake Kivu where you can enjoy watersports, sunshine and scenery in this unusual quiet beach location.   While Rwanda is not a mainstream safari location, you can enjoy an exciting camping safari in the Akagera National Park – a region of lakes, mountains and forests. A safari in Akagera is perfect if you want a real sense of pioneering in an area seen by few others.