Rwanda

Also known as ‘the land of a thousand hills’, Rwanda is a landlocked country of lovely and various landscapes. The Virunga volcanic mountains have high altitude forests, world-famous mountain gorillas, and Lake Kivu offers beautiful beaches, jutting peninsulas and an archipelago of islands. Many visitors have been surprised by the fact that Rwandans are now harmoniously living together only 15 years after the genocide that threatened to shatter the social fabric of the country. Rwandans are not only living together today but they are striving to be recognized as one people.

Parc National des Volcans in the Virunga volcanoes is home to the mountain gorillas to which Dian Fossey dedicated her life. Nyungwe Forest is one of the largest montane forests in Central Africa and is renowned for its large troops of Columbus monkeys, chimpanzees, tracking of the elusive golden monkey and rich variety of orchids that can be seen on a nature walk within this tropical rain forest. There is a variety of wildlife including the Akagera National Park, the only Savannah park in the country with large herds of elephant emerging from the woodland, hippo and crocodile around the lake. Rwanda has a rich culture with its second city, Butare, having one of the finest cultural museums in Africa or visit one of the genocide memorial sites where victims killed in Kigali are remembered and on its outskirts are buried.