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I've been to more commercial safaris in South Africa and really enjoyed my experience in Akagera. |
I booked a day trip from Kigali last minute, but really wish I had stayed overnight and camped at the park. |
The animals were decimated during the genocide and still recovering, but the only ones I was unable to see on a day trip were the lion and leopard. |
I saw elephants, hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, Iimpala, water buck, buffalos, wart hogs, baboons, and more. |
My guide, Daniel, was fantastic. |
He was very knowledgeable and personal. |
Akagera is a very wonderful National Park with wonderful landscape and amazing views enroute the park. |
The park needs to come up with total aqurate cost of what is required to explore the park, not breaking costs of what was not planned for, like asking visitors to pay for the tour guide, the park carts, then pay the entrance fee. |
Why not give a total cost as charges for exploring the park. |
If you really want to explore this park, i will advice you get there early, mostly when you are leaving from Kigali because is about 3 hours drive from Kigali. |
I will recommend the park for anyone visiting Rwanda. |
Akagera National Park is a great place to see lots of beautiful sights. |
Although the roads weren't as good, the sights amaze. |
Akagera is a national park full of stupendous sights including birds, elephants, giraffes, zebras and warthogs. |
There are only a few places to get out of the car, so usually you just stay in the car and look for animals. |
In rainy season, the grass is green and the bushes are green, but in dry season, the grass is more wilted and the bushes are less thick and green. |
The roads, you see, were very bumpy. |
I got carsick when I went. |
But it was worth it. |
I got to see the biggest land animal in the world: an African elephant. |
And I got to see the tallest animal in the world: a giraffe. |
The lodge (or hotel) amazed me so much. |
It was almost as good as the elephant. |
They had such good food that I wanted more and more until I felt like I would fall asleep. |
The room that we slept in had everything we needed: a table and two desks with drawers in them to put our stuff in--and a mosquito net to protect us from the always-biting mosquitos. |
If you want to taste some of the greatest food in Rwanda, and see some very stupendous sights, I highly recommend Akagera. |
The landscape of Akagera National Park is amazing; wide views over all these lakes. |
We have been there in December, so everything was green. |
We drove around with our driver / guide the whole day and only met perhaps ten other cars. |
Really great! |
We saw a lot of animals (even lions) and definitely enjoyed the day! |
The entrance procedure is quite well organized and the entrance fee (something around 80 US$ for two persons, car, driver, guide) seems to be reasonable. |
Being in Rwanda I definitely recommend to visit Akagera. |
We had some friends visiting from Canada accompany us to a return tour of Akagera National Park - in the rainy season. |
Rwanda is to be congratulated for their dedication to conservation. |
Our colleagues took the night safari and saw a leopard. |
The boat tour is highly recommended for birders. |
Our first day we toured the southern half of the park, and on the second day we drove to the northern half. |
We didn't see rhino, leopard or lion - but did see elephant, giraffe, water buffalo, topi, impala, mongoose, baboons, vervet monkeys, etc. |
It is a beautiful park featuring not only nature, but well-educated wardens! |
On a recent trip to Akagera in December, 2018, I was fortunate to be in the company of two very experienced guides. |
I was with a group of 14 traveling in comfortable Land Cruisers with pop tops. |
My guide is a cheerful and informative gentleman named Nizeyimana Jean Damascene. |
The driver of the other vehicle in our party was Valense, a guy with an infectious smile and wonderful manner. |
During the 2 hour journey from Kigali into Eastern Province, Damascene kept us informed on how the day would unfold, patiently answering all of our questions. |
During the six hour drive through the park, he proved to be an enthusiastic and excellent wildlife spotter, as we encountered baboons, impalas, velvet monkeys, waterbuck, several types of birds, and best of all--a stand of elephants. |
Damascene also is a rich source of information on the history of the park. |
There wasn't a single question he couldn't answer. |
I believe Akagera is a must when you visit Rwanda. |
Going with Damascene is extra special. |
You will never forget it! |
Damascene's contact information is as follows: Email: damasn85@gmail.com or damasn85@yahoo.com. |
+250788522344 and +250722522344 |
Over the past decade those who know the beautiful Akagera National Park in the Western Rwanda can surely admire the amazing increase in wildlife numbers to becoming home to the world's big five by 2018. |
This growth has seen a tremendous increase in varieties of bird species in this beautiful flat landscape. |
No much doubt this increase is a clear result of proper and sustainable conservation measures deployed by the Rwandan Authorities. |
Well done |
We opted for the 2 day trip to Akagera with Nature Trails East Africa with a guide and pop-top 4WD Land Cruiser. |
Our guide Peter was very good at getting us onto the less travelled tracks and we got to see loads of animals up close. |
We missed the big cats but were very close to hippos, elephants, buffalo, giraffes, zebra, impala, topi, waterbuck and baboons. |
The afternoon boat trip was a wonderful opportunity for bird-watching on Lake Ihema and our guide Theogene was a great spotter - we would just have liked a longer trip. |
Akagera Game Lodge is a little tired but comfortable and with great views. |
The food is very good too. |
Akagera National Park has numerous different habitats in a relatively small area - savannah, lakes, hills and forest. |
It is a beautiful park to visit and we had excellent animal viewing. |
This park in now quiet with good game and excellent birdwatching. |
I predict that in a few years time this will be high on the safari 'go-to' list. |
It is so different from the safari experience in the large game reserves of South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. |
Very few vehicles and no guides linked by radios charging after every sighting. |
One day we only saw two other vehicles in the whole day. |
If you haven't done a safari before and want to see the Big 5 guaranteed then this may not be the place to come (in 4 days we did not see lion, leopard or rhino), but if you are looking for a less commercialised safari experience I would highly recommend Akagera. |
It seems to be really improving after the devastation following the 1994 genocide, fencing in 2014 has given a rapid increases in animal numbers and all of the Big 5 are now established. |
It has a wild and natural feel - but you may need to visit soon to experience this, as the trajectory of increase in visitor numbers seems very steep. |
The scenery is beautiful. |
An escarpment runs North-South on the Western side for 120km. |
On the Eastern side a series of lakes border Tanzania. |
The wildlife and birds are therefore diverse, as the altitude and flora vary. |
We were there in November, which is at the beginning fo the 'short rains', but these seemed to be confined to short very heavy showers in the afternoon, with nice temperatures and many fewer people than high season (June to August). |
There are tsetse flies, but in November numbers were low and confined to the long grassy areas (we were told that there were more during the dry season). |
People who worked in the park was at its best in November to February and could not understand why all the tourists came in the dry season of June - August. |
The park is busier at weekends, as it is a short trip from Kigali, so if you can time your visit to mid-week that is better. |
The south part of the park has more people than the north part (the south holds the only entrance gate and the lodges, although one of the big safari companies has just started building a lodge in the north). |
Drive from north to south is about 3 hours in dry weather without stopping. |
The flat area in the south near the main gate is good game viewing, but has more people at the weekend. |
The standard of guiding is not up to the more developed safari areas - if you self-drive rather than take a tour operator from Kigali, there are 'community guides' available - we spent two days with Justice who had great spotting eyes and was knowledgeable about the birds. |
I think that every visitor should employ a community guide, as this is a great way of making a connection between the park, and realising the value of conservation, to the local community. |
However guiding training in a work in progress and you will need to find and bring in your own guide if you want a more in-depth professional approach (we found that having done some safari before the community guide was absolutely fine as we already knew the natural history and animal facts). |
The lodges do not do the 'accommodation plus game drives' packages that seem to be the norm in more developed safari destinations - we found this liberating rather than any problem. |
We were there mainly for birding and had asked Claudien Nsabagasani to join us as our guide. |
The who place is fantastic for birding, red faced barbet, swamp warbler, red chested sunbird - the list was more than 80 in 2 days. |
We had an amazing time in the park, saw lots of animals including 3 out of big 5. |
We used a guide (without him we would have missed lots of animals) - the guides are well trained and experienced so they have a great eye to spot animals. |
We also did a sunset boat trip (strangely at the reception we were told the boat trip was fully booked, however our friend had booked a spot for us and on arrival to the boat, it was just five of us). |
We stayed for one night in Akagera Game Lodge which was brilliant. |
Definitely worth a visit |
It was sad to see that the devastation from twenty years ago has still not seen a full recovery, as the once massive numbers of elephants and lions are only slowly growing back from nothing. |
That being said, the park rangers and guides do a great job protecting the animals and educating the public. |
The hills and flat lands don't provide the deep cover of protection like you see in the Nyungwe Forest in the southern region. |
This makes seeing all sorts of wildlife, buffalos, giraffe, elephants and much more...easy to locate...but it is easy to see how they would be decimated if not protected. |
Beautiful park with wonderful wildlife. |
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