Rwanda - Volcanoes National Park
Replies: 13 - Last Post: Nov 27, 2012 2:19 AM Last Post By: ric_howard
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Rwanda - Volcanoes National Park
Hello Community,has anyone traveled to Rwanda recently? Want to go in March 2013. Would appreciate any tips you would have or experiences (good and bad) you could share with me.
What were your highlights?
Especially interested in the Volcanoes National Park. Is it true however that the entrance fee is 750USD? Im afraid that would be a "little" out of my budget
Cheers
Dominik
Edited by: seiyojin
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Rwanda is a fantastic place, very beautiful, friendly people, safe and clean . Buses between the urban centres are frequent, fast cheap and comfortable and sometimes easier to go to and from Kigali rather than "cross country"The price you are looking at is for trecking to see the gorillas entry to the park is far less (not sure current prices)
There is a new Bradt guide to Rwanda coming out in December (or you can get the previous edition with a 35% discount) and I would strongly recommend you purchase one
No bad experiences just had a wonderful 3 weeks and plan on coming back this summer
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Kigali, Muzanse and surounding area, Gisenyi (did not like) Rubona much nicer than Gisenyi,Gitarama, Buttare and surounding area including Nyanza and Gikongoro4
In the volcanoes parc, you can climb Bisoke volcano. It is a one day hike.Otherwise, looking at the volcanoes, from the town of Musanze (formerly Ruhengeri) is free.
Butare has a very interesting national museum.
In Nyunge national park you can do a canopy walk and see different species of monkeys and chimps.
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canopy walk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9PmjeuuLlI&feature=related7
If you want to see the gorillas, why dont you go over the border to Uganda where gorilla trekking is USD500 high season and USD350 in April, May and November?Rwanda is very clean and odd, but very beautiful with the usual nice people, though i found them far more standoffish than in Uganda or Burundi, though one can understand this
the canopy walk at Nyugwe is nice, you can also track chimps there though finding them is around 20% possibility, as gozone says, the national museum in Butare is pretty nice, probably the nicest museum in the region
i would recommend climbing Visoke if you cannot afford the gorilla permit as it has arguably the best view at the top of any of the virunga volcanoes, costs USD100 total for that
i did not find it as nice as Uganda and most other people who live in Uganda really dislike going there but i think this is just because it is a bit different and a lot of people have issues with the regime there (the china of africa is often mentioned). If it is your first trip to central east africa then i am sure you will love it and remember the beauty of the landscape more than other strange things that you probably will not even notice
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Thanks for the tip. I was thinking about Uganda too, just I read somewhere that there is a good chance that you dont see any of the gorilla families since they might move over the border. Is that true?9
that would be for Mgahinga NP, they dont trek there if the family is away, in Bwindi NP there are about 10 families year round12
I agree with the people who recommended Uganda. The people are much nicer, warmer, and more helpful, plus Uganda is significantly cheaper and there is so much more to do and see there.
