Commonly known as a land of a thousand hills, Rwanda has reinvented itself in recent years as an ecotourism destination. The undulating hills and mountains ever covered by mist every morning form a good scenery – hence the movie “gorillas in the mist”. Mountain gorilla trekking in Volcano National Park is by far Rwanda’s major international attraction. After the release of the feature film, Gorillas in the Mist, about the late Dian Fossey’s pioneering work habituating the gorillas (in order to study their behavior), trekking increased tremendously.

Rwanda has five volcanoes, 23 lakes and numerous rivers. Her mountainous topography is a product of her position on the eastern rim of the Albertine Rift Valley, part of the Great Rift Valley which cuts through Africa from the Red Sea to Mozambique. Rwanda has three main conservation areas: the Volcanoes Park, Akagera Park and Nyungwe Forest.

Rwanda has three main conservation areas: the Volcanoes Park, Akagera Park and Nyungwe Forest. Each of these protects a very unique ecosystem and combination of large mammals. Akagera supports a typical savannah fauna dominated by a variety of antelopes, zebra, buffalo and giraffe, the aquatic hippopotamus, and plains predators such as lion, leopard and spotted hyena. The Volcanoes Park is the best place in the world to track mountain gorillas while Nyungwe offers visitors a good chance of viewing chimpanzees and 400-strong troops of colobus monkeys – the largest arboreal primate troops in Africa today.