3 Day Akagera Wildlife Safari

Our driver guide picks you up in Kigali and we head east, roughly 110 kilometres and two to two and a half hours on tarmac with a short dirt run at the end. On the way we stop at Nyakarambi, where a women’s cooperative still produces imigongo, the geometric relief paintings made from cow dung mixed with ash and earth pigments, a tradition that goes back to the old Gisaka kingdom. You can watch the ridges being worked and buy directly from the makers. Then the southern gate, park clearance, and lunch at your lodge. In the afternoon we take you down to Lake Ihema, the second largest lake in Rwanda, for a boat safari of one to two hours. This water holds one of the densest hippo populations in East Africa, so much of the trip is spent within earshot of pods grunting in the shallows, with Nile crocodiles on the mud and African fish eagles working the papyrus edge. Late afternoon is when elephant and buffalo come down to drink at the shoreline. Back at the lodge as the light goes, with the sound of hippo carrying across the water after dark.

Out of the gate at six, because the first two hours are the best of the day and lions are still active before the heat pushes everything into shade. The southern sector starts you among the lakes, with waterbuck, bushbuck, impala, olive baboon and hippo along the shoreline, and the Giraffe Area often producing Masai giraffe early. Then we drive north, and the park changes character completely. Past the Mutumba Hills the country opens into short grass plains at Kilala and Mohana, low ridges running to the horizon, with zebra, topi, eland, defassa waterbuck and buffalo grazing in the open. This is where the lions are. Akagera lost its last lion around 2001 and had them flown back from South Africa in 2015, with eastern black rhino following in 2017 and southern white rhino in 2021, so all Big Five now live in the park’s 1,122 square kilometres. Wildlife numbers have climbed past twelve thousand animals. Leopard remains the difficult one, largely nocturnal and seen by a small share of visitors, and our guide will say so rather than pretend otherwise. Picnic lunch out on the plains, then a slow return south through the afternoon.

One last drive before the park heats up, and the best of it usually comes early. We work the lake circuit and the woodland tracks on the way to the gate, which is where elephant, buffalo and the smaller antelope tend to be at that hour, and where the birding is at its most productive. Akagera has recorded more than 500 bird species across its mix of papyrus swamp, lakeshore, woodland and grassland, and this last morning is a good one to slow down for grey crowned crane, saddle billed stork, lilac breasted roller, African jacana and, if the water levels are right and luck is with you, the shoebill standing motionless in the reeds. Roan antelope and the secretive sitatunga in the swamp margins are the two species returning safari travellers most want, so tell our guide if either is on your list. We exit through the southern gate late morning and take the road back to Kigali, arriving early afternoon for an onward flight or a last night in the city. If you have hours to spare, we can add the Kigali Genocide Memorial or Kimironko market before your drop off.