8 Days Rwanda Gorilla, Wildlife & Chimps trek Safari

Welcome to Kigali, Rwanda. Our tour representative and your driver/guide will meet you at Kigali International Airport. Then we proceed to your hotel for check in and overnight at your hotel.

0600hrs Depart for Akagera National Park located along the eastern border of Rwanda, where the typically hilly countryside gives way to the savannas of the Great Rift Valley. Dominated by lakes, swamps and marshland, the area boasts a huge compliment of nature and wildlife that cannot be found elsewhere in the country.

We will arrive before lunch at the lodge. Have lunch then in the afternoon your exploration starts with a boat trip on Lake Ihema which is a very rewarding for seeing the large number of hippos, the huge Nile crocodiles and many birds. They are the most interesting part of the park especially for birders. Return to your hotel for dinner and overnight.

After breakfast leave the lodge by 07:00hrs to engage on a full day game drive and your exploration starts with a visit to the giraffe valley. Akagera National Park is characterized by woodland, swamps, low mountains and savannah. The varied terrain shelters wildlife including zebras, giraffes, elephants, lions and hundreds of bird species, such as the rare shoebill stork. Proceed to Kigali arriving late in the afternoon at your hotel.

After breakfast depart for Nyungwe National park which takes about 6 ½ hrs drive via Butare visiting enroute, the famous National Museum at Butare. The museum was donated in 1989 by the Belgium government with some ethnic collection, the design and concept all realized in co-operation with the Royal Museum for Central Africa of Tervuren; Belgium.

Ethnographic objects are grouped together according to the theme giving premium information on the daily life. Traditional ceramics and basketry are still manufactured and belong to the finest handicrafts of the region. The National Museum remained surprisingly untouched during the civil war in 1994. Later continue to Nyungwe for your afternoon canopy walk.

Sets 50 meters above the ground with a 150-meter walkway and is the first of its kind in East Africa and third on the continent after South Africa and Ghana. It allows visitors to see the forest from above the trees and be at eye level with birds and monkeys that inhabit the upper stories of the forest. Return to your hotel/lodge for dinner and overnight.

Take an early morning breakfast then with your packed lunch drive to this park for the starting point of your chimpanzee trek. Two species of chimpanzee occur in Africa. There is the Bonobo and the Common Chimpanzee Pan troglodytes (often shortened to Chimpanzee, and sometimes referred to as the Robust Chimpanzee). The largest remaining populations occur in central Africa (Gabon, DR Congo and Cameroon).

About only 400 individuals, the population in Rwanda is an endangered one. However; it should be mentioned that it is not guaranteed to see the chimps as they are unpredictable and can move long distances in one day. Nyungwe National Park is the largest block of montane forest in East and Central Africa and it is an incredibly rich area of biodiversity. Return to freshen up and depart for volcanoes National Park. Arriving late in the evening to check in to your lodge for overnight.

After an early breakfast, you will proceed to the National Park headquarters – Kinigi to meet your guides for the day. After completing our park formalities, embark on a once in a life time experience of tracking mountain gorillas. Once you spot them you are allowed to spend an hour watching your closest long-lost cousin. This is perhaps one of the most breath-taking wildlife experiences on earth!!! You get so close to these awesome giant primates.

You stare at each other blankly not knowing who to break the long silence first. Tracking the gorillas through the light mountain forest on the slopes of the Virunga is a magical experience. These massive primates are extremely rare, with less than 700 living today.  You will get within meters of the family, and be privileged to spend an hour amongst them. The trekking may be fairly strenuous; up to six hours or longer at a relatively high altitude. We encourage for your own enjoyment to make sure that you are perfectly fit and healthy.

(We’ve had people as old as 70 years old do gorilla tracking so this should not be a problem; all you need is to ask your driver guide to request a shorter group for you if cannot you trek far.) It is important to bring good hiking boots, long trousers, gloves for protection against stinging nettles, some snacks & sweets (for you, not the gorillas) as well as sufficient water as the rain forest gets hot and humid during the day. You will spend one hour with the gorillas, but it is an hour you will never forget. Return to your hotel for lunch, later in the afternoon visit the Ellen DeGeneres Campus for Gorilla fund. later dinner and overnight.

This day is set out for Golden Monkey tracking in the Volcanoes National Park. Entering dense stands of bamboo interspersed with open glades; you will make your way deep into golden monkey territory. Guides lead visitors to the habitat of groups of ‘habituated’ golden monkeys – monkeys that have become accustomed to human presence. Though viewing is kept to a maximum of one hour, travelers can get an up-close look at the golden monkey in its natural habitat.

Adult monkeys frolic in plain view, feeding on bamboo leaves and leaping from perch to perch. Females carry their young, completely comfortable among onlookers. Later visit Iby’iwacu Cultural Village a Non-Profit umbrella organization that aims at improving the lives of reformed poachers and communities around Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park through provision of conservation incentives, supporting community enterprise development and livelihood-based projects. Return to your hotel to freshen up and have lunch then later dinner and overnight.

After breakfast you will return to the park office for our last activity, the hike to Dian Fossey Tomb, we will return late afternoon, freshen up and depart for Kigali, arriving late in the evening.