Akagera National Park

Life feels very good! 😊 Each new experience, even the not so good ones, make imagining coming home even harder. Still we don’t have to think about any of that for a long while yet.

Of course there are some things we’re missing, definitely Joe and Ellie and the rest of our families, friends and pets but it’s different to any other time. Being busy all of the time, going to new places, adjusting to new routines, all of it is making time fly by. I can’t believe we’re coming into our sixth week already – and no Jen, we’re not coming home to you early.🤔

Right, back to the topic in question – Akagera National Park. Coming to Africa, we did think we might go on a safari but having loved our one in Kenya so much five years ago and knowing how expensive they can be, it wasn’t a priority. During our first day in Kigali, while we waited for the rain to stop, we got to looking at what else we might do in Rwanda and found their National Parks. Next thing we knew we’d booked a car, done a little research and were on our way East.Rwanda is stunning, I am not usually a good road trip companion but when there is never ending beautiful scenery and a continuous flow of humanity to watch then the road trip takes on a whole new dimension. I have also decided, after 30 years of being his passenger (apart from when he’s had a drink or two and is relaxed enough for me to drive) that Rob is a very good, possibly even excellent, driver.

The first two hours of the journey flew by and although it became a little more bumpy for the last half an hour we arrived safe and sound to Akagera Game Lodge.

The view from our room looking out over Lake Ihema, the second largest lake in Rwanda, was amazing at every time of the day.Although we could easily have stayed in our room all the time and watched the sun set and rise over the lake we had some self driving safariing to be getting on with. At 5.30am on Wednesday we were up and raring to go, all ready to drive the whole (over 100 km) length of the park and back.

I won’t bore you with too many details of the safari but for 40 dollars per day we got to drive all over the park to see what we could find. The hippos, zebras, warthogs, different types of birds, monkeys, baboons, several types of deer, buffalo and crocs were abundant. Our highlight of the first day was a whole herd of elephants crossing our path as we had nearly given up hope and were on our way home. Some of them were unbelievably gigantic and we watched as they all crossed including a couple of mothers closely protecting their babies. When we assumed they’d all finished and had disappeared into the bushes, what we presume was the matriarch came back and waited in the road. Unsure what to do we continued to watch as one final, small elephant with an extremely shortened trunk and an injured back, left leg limped on to our path. The older elephant waited, nudging it with her trunk until it too had crossed and was safely in the bushes, before turning and following.

We thought our elephant excitement was over until we started off again and met a lone, very large, bull elephant. We gave him some space as he walked along the path ahead of our vehicle and stopped when he stopped. We waited as he looked over his shoulder at us and proceeded to slowly turn and walk towards us. Rob’s hasty reversing obviously removed the threat and after a couple more steps in our direction he veered off into the bushes seemingly happy that he was in charge.

Our second day, after not quite such an early start, was similar to our first with the absence of elephants but the inclusion of a giraffe. You definitely have to work harder here than in Kenya to see the animals but when you do it feels even more rewarding. We were slightly disappointed to see no predators but still loved the whole, very different experience. Rob again excelled himself as a top off road driver, navigating paths that our poor little rav 4 was definitely not built for and some that definitely hadn’t seen any other vehicles in a long while. For 98% of our time in the park we felt like we were the only ones there and when we did see another vehicle it was very briefly before they disappeared down an alternative route.

Our second day highlight was a sunset boat tour on lake Ihema and specifically the abundance of birds and being chased by a hippo. We had an amazing couple of days and I would highly recommend this as a brilliant budget safari.