Akagera National Park

Akagera Game Park is bordering Tanzania with a low attitude and the National park is Rwanda’s Big game safari attraction. The breezy cool climate and steep cultivated hills make the Akagera Park an exciting with nature attractive game reserves, savanna land scape and tropical vegetation and combination of Rwanda gorilla safari with Akagera wildlife tour is rewarding to any tourist panning to book any Rwanda Adventure safari.

The park is the country’s answer to the East Africa savannah, Akagera is naturally attractive with beautiful walking trails for Rwanda’s walking safaris to the swamps, acacia trees, rolling grassland and forests. In the past, the park suffered from heavy poaching by the local communities in search for Red meat until when the Rwanda government become strict and put up lows governing game reserves. From that time there has been and increase in the number of tourists visiting the park with a combination of visit other safari destinations and attractions in Rwanda.

Set at a relatively low altitude on the border with Tanzania, Akagera National Park could scarcely be more different in mood to the breezy cultivated hills that characterize much of Rwanda. Dominated scenically by the labyrinth of swamps and lakes that follow the meandering course of the Akagera River, the most remote source of the Nile, this is an archetypal African savannah landscape of tangled acacia woodland interspersed with open grassland.

Akagera safari activities:

Wild Game

Akagera is, above all, big game country! Herds of elephant and buffalo emerge from the woodland to drink at the lakes, while lucky visitors might stumble across a spotted hyena or even a stray lion.

Giraffe and zebra amble through the savannah, and more than a dozen types of antelope inhabit the park, most commonly the handsome chestnut-coated impala, but also the diminutive oribi and secretive bushbuck, as well as the ungainly tsessebe and the world’s largest antelope, the statuesque cape eland.

Akagera National Park is a good spot for Rwanda’s wildlife safaris and attractions and activities include:-
Game viewing safaris: The best time to take a game drive is during the morning for the early risers and the evening hours. Akagera National Park is still worth visiting for game viewing safaris. Visiting taking this Akegera park safari should expect to see animals like bushbaby, warthog, elephants, crocodiles, buffalo, zebra, hippos, amazing birds fro bird watching safaris and many other mammal species. If luck you may also see leopard, lion and black rhino but these are occasionally and rarely seen by tourists.  The game drive in Akegera also offers panoramic views Rwanda’ gentle hills, Lakes, Rivers and Low land swamps.

Bird Watching Safaris

Akagera is a bird watching paradise next to Nyungwe Forest. Early morning and evening bird watching safaris on the game tracks in Akagera National wildlife safari Park offers birdwatchers with chance to see a variety of Rwanda’s savanna birds. Akagera Park is famous for its richness in water birds in the East African safari destinations and one of the exceptional places to view papyrus endemics. Birds to see include: – the gorgeous lilac-breasted roller, warthog, black headed gonalek, heuglin’s robin-chat, grey hornbill, crested barbet and others.

Camping alongside the picturesque lakes of Akagera is a truly mystical
introduction to the wonders of the African bush. Pods of 50 hippopotami grunt and splutter throughout the day while outsized crocodiles soak up the sun with their vast jaws menacingly agape. Magically, the air is torn apart by the unforgettable high duetting of a pair of fish eagles, asserting their status as the avian monarchs of Africa’s waterways. Lining the lakes are some of the continent’s densest concentrations of water birds, while the connecting marshes are the haunt of the endangered and exquisite papyrus gonolek, and the bizarre shoebill stork – the latter perhaps the most eagerly sought of all African birds.

Optional Activities

  •  Guided Walking safaris
  • Local community visits
  • Overnight camping
  • Tour to Rusumo water falls on Kagera River where the 1994 thousands of dead bodied where dumped during   the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.
  • Participation in conservation projects at the park

Rusumo Falls

Rusumo Falls is a waterfall located on the Kagera River on the border between Rwanda and Tanzania, part of the most distant headwaters of the river Nile. The falls gained international fame during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as thousands of dead bodies flowed underneath the bridge while a simultaneous stream of refugees crossed over it, fleeing into Tanzania to escape the fighting. This was one of the first mass outflows of the Great Lakes refugee crisis