Rwanda Holidays

Akagera is a great story of revival. It was an ecosystem about to disappear until African Parks took over the park management in 2010 in partnership with the government of Rwanda and local communities, and it is now one of thriving biodiversity, including the Big Five. It has beautiful and unique scenery, including central Africa’s largest protected wetlands, which can be explored by boat. The birdlife is excellent, and even the shoebill is returning.

Game drives are best in the early morning or late afternoon into the evening; however, in the plains areas wildlife is fairly visible throughout the day. There are good numbers of zebra, buffalo, topi and impala. Two large herds of elephant roam in the north and south of the park, and are often encountered by guests. Lions tend to be more active outside of the heat of the day, so the ideal chance for viewing them is early morning or evening. There are night game drives, which is the best time to catch sight of one or more of the numerous leopards.

For something different, there are regular boat trips on Lake Ihema. Being on the water is fun and relaxing and offers great viewing opportunities for Akagera’s waterbirds, as well as hippo and crocodile, of which the park has many. There are hot-air balloon flights, which last up to 60 minutes and operate in the south of the park; as with the boat rides, they give a different way of seeing the park, with high-level views over Akagera’s beautiful landscape.\

This half-day tour introduces you to Rwandan food, a cultural staple. Your host has run restaurants and has developed relationships with all kinds of nearby farmers: people growing macadamia nuts, chia seeds, cassava and sweet potatoes. The tour starts with a visit to one of Kigali’s colourful farmers markets to shop for some of the ingredients for the cooking class later. The tour is customised to your interests so you may visit a farm outside Kigali or meet the locals with a visit to a milk bar.

You'll take part in a short cooking class that focuses on Rwandan-inspired recipes. You'll pop on an apron and learn how to prepare various local fruits and vegetables, cook a few dishes and have a tasting, followed by a nice lunch. You can also incorporate cocktail making using lemongrass, passionfruit and tropical fruits to create innovative non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.

Food is a big part of the overall experience and this tour allows you to interact with farmers, explore community markets and discover new recipes that they can take home with them afterwards.

On this walking tour, you get to explore a fascinating area of Kigali – its oldest neighbourhood. You will discover how people live whilst helping to support an important local community project.

The tour starts at Nyamirambo Women’s Center, a Rwandan NGO launched in 2007, where you will be given a brief introduction as to what they do. You will then have a Kinyarwanda lesson so that when you’re walking around you’ll know some important words, like how to greet people in the local language. It’s just a few words, and you get a hard copy to take away with you so you don’t forget. As you tour the centre you will meet some of the women who work here, producing products such as children’s clothes, handbags and homewares.

Next head out to see what the people of Nyamirambo get up to in their everyday lives. You may visit people who are selling milk or stop at a hair salon where they do braids. You will see women selling fruit and vegetables and a family compound where the women pounding cassava leaves will be happy to let you help them. The pounded leaves are used to make a very popular traditional dish called isombe, which is like a soup or a stew and is very healthy. You can call into a local tailoring shop, where you can choose the fabric, they measure you and make a dress or shirt for you.

You will finish with lunch at the home of one of the ladies in the group. It’s local food, and you get to taste popular Rwandan dishes such as cooked banana, beans, vegetables, sweet potato and cassava.

There’s nothing nicer if you’ve been on the go for a few days, trekking up volcanoes and through forests, than being able to flop on a sandy beach and just relax. You wouldn’t think that was possible in a landlocked country, but thankfully Rwanda has Lake Kivu – one of Africa’s biggest lakes – which has a string of lovely beaches along its eastern edge. It’s perfect for swimming, too, because there aren’t any hippos or crocodiles, and the water’s really clear and clean. It’s very popular with the Rwandans, but international travellers haven’t really discovered it yet and it still feels calm and unspoiled and a bit of a clever find.

You can’t come to Lake Kivu and not go out on a boat of some kind, and there are plenty of different trips on offer. On some of them, you literally just go out on the water for a scenic cruise, so look for one that includes stops at some of the most interesting islands. There’s quite a few: Napoleon Island with its huge colony of fruit bats and the occasional African fish eagle, Monkey Island with its population of vervet monkeys, Peace Island with the swimming cows. Another great option if you want to spend the day lazing on the beach is a sunset boat cruise. You'll be sitting with a drink, watching the amazing scenery get even more amazing as everything changes colour, and suddenly the local fishermen are going past in their dugout canoes singing their traditional songs. It’s magical.

If you’re feeling a bit more energetic, you could rent a canoe or kayak and have a gentle paddle along the shore. Or, head off on an organised tour with an expert guide – you can do anything from a day to a few hours. You get the same feeling of peace just gliding along, but with the benefit of local knowledge. So you’ll visit places and see things you probably wouldn’t be able to find by yourself, whether it’s a particularly lovely hidden bay, a tucked-away fishing village or a spot where you might catch a glimpse of Congo clawless otters.

Land-based activities include hiking or mountain biking along the Congo Nile Trail which stretches all the way along the side of the lake for 140 miles. It would take about five days to cycle the whole thing, and twice as long to walk it, so most people just do a short section. It really takes you into the heart of rural Rwanda, along dirt roads and tracks through the forest, past tea, coffee and banana plantations, and into villages where you can watch daily life going on. Definitely worth getting off your sun lounger for.

Learn the secrets of tea processing, from leaf to cup, on a guided tour of the on-site plantation. Nyungwe House has its own tea estate, Gisakura, which is owned and run by the local community. During the one-hour tour, you will learn how the popular black tea is made. You’ll get to pick the leaves and have a tasting session as you enjoy views over the lime-green tea fields, stretching to the rainforest and mountains beyond.

As you pick the leaves, you will be taught about the history of the tea estate, which began in 1952 when the bushes were planted in this western region of Rwanda. The tea is picked every 11 days and pruned once every four years for germination. Thanks to the volcanic soil here and high elevation, an amazing full-bodied black tea that has around seven different grades is produced here. While you’re out on the plantation you can take pictures with the tea pickers and chat with them about their experiences.

Afterwards, head into the tea lounge to learn about the production process. Once picked, the leaves are sent to the nearby tea factory where they’re dried, cut and fermented, sorted and packed. You’ll get to taste the different grades of high-quality tea, which has now become one of Rwanda’s largest exports. Each one has a different flavour to discover and they are paired with snacks like chocolate and scones. As an added extra you can also request to have a private meal in the tea plantation, surrounded by birds and beautiful scenery.

Doing a chimpanzee trek not only allows you to experience the daily activities and social structure of a chimpanzee family, but also gives you an opportunity to enjoy the forest environment where they live. The colours, the smells, the sounds, the fresh air and the views all make an unforgettable lifetime experience.

The treks start at 5am, which gives you a chance of spotting chimpanzees as they ‘de-nest’. Mornings are also ideal because it’s when the chimpanzees are at their most active – feeding, pant-hooting, grooming and so on. The whole trip takes between four and seven hours, including the drive to and from the nearest hotels.

There's never a 100% guarantee that you’ll see chimpanzees, but the guide and the trackers monitor them every day to try to make sure that visitors have a successful and memorable experience. Ensuring the safety of the visitors without compromising the safety of chimpanzees and their habitat is a priority for the trekking team. One of the studied communities in Nyungwe has the largest home range ever known for montane chimpanzee populations. It covers a wide band of altitudinal range, which offers a variety of vegetation and food resources and makes their tracking and movement predictable given the changing food availability at different levels of altitude and at different seasons in a year.

Depending on where the chimpanzees move to, you will have the bonus of amazing views of mountainous forest landscapes, often partly covered by the forest fog, and green tea plantations in the buffer zone near Gisakura and along the drive to Cyamudongo. Some parts of the forest will give you views of Lake Kivu on the horizon. In addition, there’s the possibility of seeing other primates, including L’Hoest’s monkey, Dent’s mona monkey and grey-cheeked mangabey, and colourful birds such as great blue turaco, the endemic Rwenzori turaco, Ross’s turaco and black-and-white-casqued hornbill along the way.

Treks are led by community guides who are young men and women from the immediate vicinity. The community freelance guides cooperative was initiated by Nyungwe Management Company based on the lessons and success story of African Parks in Akagera National Park. The trackers are also from the surrounding villages, as are the porters; in fact, more than 90% of the jobs in the park are held by people from the surrounding communities. 15% of the gross revenues are immediately paid by the park to fund priority development projects for the communities in close proximity to the park and to compensate them for any damage caused by the wildlife – mainly crop and livestock raiding.

The nature walk at Wilderness Sabyinyo is a meditative experience that will help you reconnect with Mother Earth. One of the in-house ornithologists will guide you on the hour-long walk, pointing out some of the 50 different species of birds that live here. The trail winds through the 31-acre grounds and along the way, you’ll learn about the native flora, explore the farm and have the chance to spot wildlife.

The trail begins in the beautiful flower garden and this leads to a trail that meanders through eucalyptus woods. There are plans to start harvesting the leaves to make essential oils and candles, a process to teach local farmers so they’re able to make and export eucalyptus products. They’re also re-wilding this area by planting indigenous trees so that the property merges seamlessly with Volcanoes National Park when they expand their boundaries over the next few years.

You’ll pass the barn, which is home to the artist-in-residency programme, and the large reservoir that is being turned into an eco-friendly aquaponics area. Next, head through the colourful wildflower forest to the vegetable garden. Meet the chickens and sheep - described as their sustainable lawnmowers.

A highlight of the nature walk is the bamboo forest, which leads to a lava cave that was formed over 2.5 million years ago when the neighbouring volcano Mount Sabyinyo erupted; it has amazing white fluorescent algae growing on top. Be sure to spend some time sitting on the meditation bench beside the stream which irrigates the tea plantation. If you’re lucky, you may spot golden monkeys jumping through the trees.

Trekking to see the mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park is something you'll never forget. They’re such gentle, majestic creatures and it's a privilege to spend an hour watching them in the wild. The permits to see them are like gold dust and may seem costly but it really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

When you arrive at Volcanoes National Park, it’s still early and the guides do a quick assessment of how fit and agile they think you are and divide you up into groups accordingly. The gorillas are free to roam on the mountains, so the spotters go out the evening before to see where each group has settled down for the night, and some might be only an hour away and others might be three or four hours away. After that, you have a briefing about what to expect and a few rules, like, not going too close to the gorillas and keeping your voice down when you’re near them. You can hire a porter to assist with camera bags and help you up the mountain.

After an often strenuous trek at altitude, the reward is seeing mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. It can be emotionally overwhelming as you see them for the first time. You may encounter a mother with her baby in her arms, youngsters tumbling through the vegetation and a mighty silverback watching his family. You'll spend a magical hour in their company before beginning the trek back.