Both social or economic and political developments have made Rwanda a great tourist centers in the whole of Africa, Akagera, Volcanoes and Nyungwe National Parks plus the genocide memorial sites have lifted Rwanda profile hence becoming prominent and known due to the attractions that inspires many people to visit and see. Before I thought that being a small country nothing can attract people but I had to observe it myself.
We arranged a tour to these great places with Nature Adventure Africa Safaris Limited, it was a six days safari but it was affordable. We were to do a game drive, gorilla tracking, canopy walking and birding plus visiting the genocide sites.
We were charged the following rates per person per activity; canopy walking $60, gorilla tracking $1500, Genocide sites was free of charge game drive per ranger $20. All this information before we paid for our gorilla safaris and Moses drafted us an itinerary.
On reaching Rwanda, we were request to acquire a visa which we did and we were officially picked and taken to Five To Five hotel where we enjoyed free Wi-Fi during nigh ours. The second day we were picked and we were taken to Volcanoes national park in the north west of Kigali, since this was on our minds, we couldn’t imagine even to reach volcanoes. We staged at the park headquarters for a few minutes and we were given park rangers who led us in the activity.
We went through a deep bamboo to experience these gentle creatures as they stay high on the mountains but this wasn’t a hard activity since we were too enthusiastic to watch them, as we ascended high using the sticks that we acquired from the forests. As we were moving, we heard sounding voices from the giant mountain gorilla known as the silver back a male one in the group with the young ones following, golden monkeys also gave us a surprise by appearing in front of us.
This took us 6hours of tracking but we had taken our snacks, after tracking we went straight to Akagera game lodge in Akagera National park in the north eastern Rwanda where we had an evening tea plus supper including accommodation. On the third day after tea, we were taken to for a game watch, this was so amazing since we got a chance to watch and take photos of some animals we had never seen in our lives and if it wasn’t travelling to Rwanda, we couldn’t have got a chance to watch them and these included elephant, buffalo, topi, zebra, water buck, roan antelope and eland. Other antelope are duiker, oribi, bohor reed buck, klipspringer, bush buck and the rarest impala.
This didn’t take us much time since the rangers we got from the park were too experienced to sport the animals where they spent their nights; we got a chance to reach the River Akagera which is believed to flow into Lake Victoria in Uganda forming the Nile River. From here we watched hippos and crocodiles on the river shores. During lunch hours we went to the lodge for lunch and also an overnight.
On the fourth day Emma drove us the south west of Rwanda into Nyungwe national park but before we rested at Hotel Credo near Nyungwe and in the evening we went for the canopy walk with the guides including a birder whom we hired at $50 from the headquarters. Who explained to us over 30bird species as we were on top of the canopy high around 60m but during the activity, black and white monkeys were also running away from us and we found some already in the canopy enjoying their life on what they know as a bridge. In the evening we went back to the lodge and this is where we spent most of our time including an overnight.
On the fifth day we went back to Kigali and by midday we were already at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, many of my colleagues cried due to the large number of innocent people who died in this civil war. Over 259000 victims were buried here and many people visit this place to pay a tribute to these lost people. In the evening we went to Five to Five Hotel for an overnight and early in the morning, Emma came for us and we were taken to the airport for departure.
