Safari Quick Facts

We have an early start this morning for our drive to Huye (Butare), stopping for a visit to the ancient Kings' Palace, the pre European capital of the country. Arriving in Huye (Butare) for lunch, the 'intellectual capital' of Rwanda with the National University and Institute of Scientific Research, we will visit the National Museum, a really excellent museum with really interesting archaeological artifacts.

Today we travel to Nyungwe Forest, the oldest rainforest Africa. This forest offers some great walking and amazing scenery over Lake Kivu and out to Parc National des Volcans. We will spend the afternoon walking in the forest past towering hardwood trees, and flowing waterfalls; there should even be a start to our primate spotting, as there is a large population of Colobus monkeys in the forest.

After breakfast we head out, with our tracker, into the forest again for our guided chimp trek. The terrain may be slippery and at times there are some steep ascents and descents over muddy slopes, so strong footwear is essential, but we will hopefully be rewarded with a wonderful sighting of these smaller primates in their natural habitat

Morning drive to Rubavu (Gisenyi) stopping en-route for lunch. Rubavu (Gisenyi) is a holiday resort town on the shores of Lake Kivu; we have the rest of the day free to lie and relax on the shores of the lake or enjoy some of the water sports or boat trips on offer.

We spend the morning in Rubavu (Gisenyi) before heading to Musanze (Ruhengeri), our base for the next couple of days. Musanze (Ruhengeri) itself is not a major town, and most visitors stay here as a staging post for visiting the Mountain gorillas in Parc National des Volcans. The rest of the day is free to relax, have a short walk through town, and prepare for our Gorilla Trek.

Today is a highlight of our trip, a day of tracking to find a family of Mountain gorillas. Owing to the very nature of the terrain and the need to explore in order to find the gorillas, there are no paths to follow and our guides will occasionally need to cut a way through the undergrowth. At times there are some steep ascents and descents over muddy slopes, so strong footwear is essential. You must expect a minimum of three hours walking to find the gorillas.
Despite the challenging terrain, the rain forest scenery makes the walking very interesting, and to be close to the gorillas in their natural habitat is an experience you will never forget. An adult male can weigh up to 195kg, a female up to 100kg, and a male can reach 1.7m in height. The gorillas are almost exclusively vegetarian and are quite destructive eaters, which makes them unpopular with the farmers lower down the mountain slopes - they have been known to wreck a whole field of crops just to eat one plant. For this reason, and also because of poaching, the gorillas are very carefully protected. We can venture to within eight metres of the gorilla families with reasonable safety as, in spite of their reputation, they are gentle creatures and are not known to attack unless very severely provoked. Also, we do not venture any closer because the gorillas are very susceptible to human disease - please note that anyone with a cold or any similar ailment may not be allowed near to gorillas

We head into the park again today to track the Golden Monkey, another endangered member of the primate family. Very little is known of the Golden Monkey and it is only in recent years that researchers have started to collate more information. The only population of these monkeys is in Parc National des Volcans; previously there were families found in Nyungwe Forest. They mainly live in the bamboo and so are harder to spot, but this is what our tracker is there to do. After our trek we head back to Kigali.

End Kigali