rwanda: a week of gorillas and rainforest

Very high, though these are wild animals and the park promises nothing.

Rwanda publishes no official figure, but we put success at better than 95 per cent, and the reason is method, not luck. Trackers go out before dawn to the place where each habituated family built its night nests and stay with it, so by the time you leave the briefing at Kinigi someone usually knows where your gorillas are.

If a family moves so far that visitors cannot reach it all day, Rwanda's permit rules allow for another chance. Once you arrive you have one hour, in a party of no more than eight, wearing a mask while you are close.

One thing can stop you on the day: anyone with a cold, flu or other contagious illness is asked not to visit, so look after yourself on the journey out.

It can be harder on the lungs than on the legs.

Treks here are generally judged easier than Uganda's, but they are higher: the gorillas live between about 2,500 and 4,000 metres on the slopes of the volcanoes, and thin air makes a steady climb feel steeper than it looks. Reaching them can take half an hour or four hours and more, through bamboo, stinging nettles and mud, and nobody knows which until the day.

Virunga Lodge sits on a ridge some way from the park, so expect to leave at about 6am for the 7am briefing at Kinigi. There the rangers allocate the families with fitness in mind, so say plainly if you want a shorter walk.

Porters can be hired at the start to carry your bag and lend a hand on the steep parts, and we would always take one. The minimum age is 15. If altitude worries you, speak to your own doctor before you book.

Less reliable than the gorillas, and it is better to know that before you go.

Nyungwe's chimpanzee communities are only semi-habituated, there is no official success rate, and we rate it harder than tracking chimpanzees in Uganda or Tanzania.

The day starts very early, at about 5.30am, only eight visitors a day go to each community, and once the chimpanzees are found you have a maximum of one hour. Of the tracking sites, the small Cyamudongo forest is generally reckoned the more reliable.

Two nights at Nyungwe House leave room for the forest's more dependable rewards as well: the park tracks a troop of more than 400 black-and-white colobus, and the canopy walkway hangs 70 metres above the valley floor.

June, July and August are the months we rate highest at every stop: the long dry stretch firms the trails on the volcanoes, fig trees fruit in Nyungwe and draw the chimpanzees, and Lake Kivu is calm. They are also when gorilla permits and the small lodges sell out furthest ahead.

January and February are the second choice, a shorter dry spell that we rate well for the gorillas and the lake.

The gorillas are tracked all year, so the wetter months change the comfort of the walk, not your chance of finding them. The in-between months of May, October and December bring rain and muddier trails, and real advantages with them: permits are easier to come by, lodges may discount, the forest is at its greenest and Nyungwe's birding is strong.

March, April and November are the months we rate lowest for the gorillas, with the heaviest rain and the hardest going on the volcanoes.

Rwanda is small but mountainous, so the distances are short and the drives are not.

Kigali to Nyungwe takes five to six hours. Nyungwe to Gisenyi follows the winding road along Lake Kivu for around five hours, which is why the lake night sits where it does, as a rest between the two forests.

From Gisenyi it is about an hour to Volcanoes National Park, with Virunga Lodge up to an hour beyond it. The last drive back to Kigali takes about three hours.

The first leg is the one worth flying. The national airline has a scheduled flight from Kigali to Kamembe, about 45 minutes by road from Nyungwe House, or a helicopter, typically an Agusta, covers the journey in about half an hour. Helicopters also link Kigali with the volcanoes in a similar time.

Tell us if long drives are a worry and we will build the flights into your plan.

Yes. We plan the week around you, and the route shown is a starting point.

The most popular additions are at the volcanoes: a second gorilla trek on another morning, which takes the pressure off the first, or a morning tracking golden monkeys, with an hour in their company. Strong walkers can climb to the crater lake on Mount Bisoke at 3,700 metres, which takes from five hours to a full day.

For open savannah, Akagera National Park is two to three hours east of Kigali: buffalo, zebra, topi, hippos and crocodiles are reliably seen, and lions and both black and white rhino have been reintroduced since 2015, though the cats take luck. Lake Kivu is the easiest night to drop or to double.

What cannot be improvised is the gorilla permit. Only eight are issued for each family each day, so we secure those first and the dates follow them.