If you have never visited Rwanda, then you have never traveled to Africa to have a practical experience of the Africa’s finest tourist’s destinations, besides being at the top of the cleanest countries in the world, Rwanda has been credited for its amazing and interesting features and wildlife from her parks. Volcanoes national park is the leading park centre where most of the tourist visit due to the rare endangered mountain gorillas that stays in this park.
Interesting and amusing stories never expire sincerely that’s why i decided to write this review from what we experienced from our tour in the volcanoes national park. We cannot under estimate the incredible services Nature Adventure rendered to us from the start of this journey to the end of it. This was to take us seven days exploring these wonderful volcanoes. We paid for everything before our journey.
On our first day we were taken to Kigali Marriott Hotel where we slept and on the second day, we were transferred to volcanoes national park to do our first activity and here we woke up early at 4am. We were given some brief background of the park before and we started tracking at exactly 8am we went for gorilla safaris since it’s the major activity in the volcanoes national park, this park comprises of 10 gorilla groups that are habituated and are ready to be viewed by visitors
The following are among the gorilla groups that are found in this park and the Sabyinyo group led by Guhonda, the biggest silver back was our first priority group to track from this park however other gorilla groups in this park include Amahoro group led by Ubumbwe Umubano group led by Charles a silver back, Susa group which lives around Susa river and it is believed to be the largest group and it has the oldest gorilla that was born in 1976.
Hirwa group is another family found in this park, we were told that the name Hirwa means “Lucky one”, Agashya makes another group around and it is led by Agashya upon challenging Nyakarima the former group leader and usually this group can be found via the forested saddle between Sabyinyo and Mount Gahinga. Kwitonda group has got 3 silver backs and established itself on the slopes of Mount Muhabura. All this information blended our first trekking activity though we spent only one hour with the gorillas, in the evening we went to Sabyinyo silver back lodge for an overnight.
On the third day, we went for golden monkey trekking. Trekking of the golden Monkey was another adventure while in this park and this added on the happiness we had from the gorillas that we had trekked a day back, these are other primates that attract tourists because of their rareness. We found them in the forests and for real they offered us a life time thrill to the on that day.
On the fourth day we went for Dian Fossey Tomb who was buried here some years back, we were told that she was a researcher in Rwanda by then and the tomb was named after this great mighty lady Dian Fossey who committed her life to saving the gorillas. this tomb is an hour and 45 minutes’ hike on steep slopes where birds and some orchards were seen around.
On the fifth day we engaged into a hike to Lake Ngezi on Mount Bisoke. This hike took us about 4 hours since it was too steep from the departure point to reach the summit. This walk around the lake was hectic to the extent that we used a total of 7 hours. The features of the lake being small, shallow and the easiest hike in the park was another experience we observed from the park.
On the sixth day we went for community based tourism, we toured the Ethno botany tour with traditional healers. From this casual tour, we came across the local herbs which are believed to treat ailments, we also ran in to a local pharmacy to see the injured individuals and the follow up on their recovery process. Kinigi – Iby’wacu cultural Village was our next step tour, this came out with some exciting events such as riding a wooden bicycle; grinding millet and sorghum, shooting arrows with the Batwa people, dances from the Intore people.
Since our activities were done, other interesting places around d the park includes markets in Musanze, Brick making Tour where One can visit the fields and watch how local bricks are made with clay, wrapped in banana leaves and left to dry for 2 days. Visiting Lakes Karago and Lake Nyarakigugu, Kwita Izina a function where a new born child in every family is given a name the Rugezi swamp and the Musanze caves with over 32 entrances. On our seventh day we went back to Kigali for our departure but volcanoes is the supreme tourist center in Rwanda.
