Safari to Akagera

a very scenic location with elusive predators

At 1120 square kilometres, Akagera National Park is a substantial conservation area which runs for about 100 km down the country’s eastern border with Tanzania.

Akagera is a very scenic location, with an unusually diverse range of habitats for its size and therefore a broad range of wildlife.

To the west lies a range of gentle rolling hills covered in light acacia scrub and dry grassy uplands. Those hills drop down eastward into a broad north to south valley, with a patchwork of more dense acacia forests and open savanna that has the feel of a more conventional East African safari landscape.

Further south the Kagera River feeds into a series of lakes, marshes and papyrus swamps that are apparently East Africa’s largest protected wetlands and which make up a third of the park’s total area.

The reserve was decimated by poaching, but has recently undergone a major rehabilitation program and is now well worth visiting.

Common wildlife sightings include baboons, impalas, topis, Maasai giraffes, Burchell’s zebras, topis, elands, buffaloes, oribis, Defassa waterbuck, reedbucks, bushbucks, sables, roans, hippos and crocodiles.

Lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos are also present, but sightings remain less frequent than in most leading savanna reserves.

Most people coming in to see the gorillas in Rwanda subsequently head over to Serengeti in Tanzania for their savanna safari. By way of an alternative, Akagera is most commonly visited by experienced safari travellers who have already been to those areas.

Seasonality

The best time of year to visit Akagera is during the May-Sep winter dry season, when the grasses should die back, to allow easier wildlife viewing.

Getting around

Considering the small size of Rwanda, getting around is surprisingly difficult. The main problem is that there are no scheduled light aircraft services between the key locations, meaning that connections almost always have to be done by private road transfers. There are options to travel by helicopter instead, but this can get very expensive.

Akagera lies right over on the eastern border of the country, the opposite side to the primate areas. The capital Kigali lies in the middle, so connecting these areas often means returning back through the starting point, which is less than ideal.

The reserve is an easy 2-3 hour drive from Kigali to the southern Kiyonza Gate. The Nyungwe Gate to the north can only be used as a means of exit, not entrance. This easy access is both a blessing and a curse, since it opens up the reserve to day trippers. However if you stay at one of the camps deep within the park, you should hopefully not be too disturbed by this traffic.

If you include all three of the main areas, Virunga (gorillas), Nyungwe (chimps) and Akagera (savanna), this can be done as an anti-clockwise circuit, which certainly improves the routing, but does leave you with a lot of time in the vehicle.

Where to stay

Up to 2014 the only accommodation option in the reserve was Akagera Game Lodge, which used to be rather grim back then, but has been upgraded more recently.

Since that time the conservation body African Parks opened a couple of simple facilities (Ruzizi Tented Lodge and Karenge Bush Camp) in order to pioneer the concept of proper safari tourism here and start to get people in the habit of including a visit to Akagera in with the popular gorilla safaris in the Virunga Mountains.

In 2018 the prestigious operators Wilderness Safaris opened the first proper safari base in Akagera, Magashi Camp, really opening up the place for the kind of high value low impact tourism that is needed here.

a low-key alternative to the Serengeti in a gorilla trip