rwanda: nyungwe’s chimps to the volcanoes gorillas

Less likely than with the gorillas, and two nights give you one proper attempt, so it pays to be clear-eyed.

Nyungwe has no official success rate and we will not invent one. The three communities tracked here, Cyamudongo, Mayebe and Gisovu, are semi-habituated, and the tracking is difficult, on forested slopes between 1,600 and 2,950 metres.

Each community takes at most eight visitors a day, you set out at about 5.30am, and your hour with the chimpanzees starts only once they are found. Of the three, Cyamudongo, a separate patch of forest, has the better reputation for sightings.

If the chimpanzees are your main reason for coming, ask us for a third night, which turns one attempt into two.

The colobus are a surer thing: one troop followed by the park is over 400 strong, and a smaller group of about 50 is tracked from Gisakura, close to Nyungwe House.

For one trek, yes.

You reach Kinigi from Lake Kivu on day six, the natural morning to trek is day seven, and you leave for Kigali on day eight.

We put success at better than 95 per cent, so one morning is normally all it takes. The odds are high because trackers are out before first light finding where each family spent the night.

What two nights do not give you is slack. If you would like a second gorilla trek, or a morning with the golden monkeys, there are two ways to make room: trek again on the morning you leave, which works because Kigali is only two and a half to three hours away, or add a third night at the farm.

Either needs deciding at the booking stage, since each family takes just eight visitors a day and a permit is tied to its date.

Harder than a country walk and easier than its reputation.

You will be walking somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 metres, high enough for the thinner air to be felt on the climb, and the walk in can be over in 30 minutes or last beyond four hours, on muddy paths through nettles and bamboo.

We still judge this the easiest place to track mountain gorillas, and the 7am briefing at Kinigi helps: families are matched to fitness there, and it is the moment to ask for a nearer group.

Farmhouse Rwanda is a short drive from the park headquarters, so your morning starts later than it would from lodges further out. Porters wait at the trailhead and will take your daypack and help you up the steeper pitches.

The altitude may cause difficulties for some visitors. If that might be you, a conversation with your doctor should come before the booking.

Enough for what the stop is for, which is a rest and a break in the road.

Karongi lies roughly half way along the lake, so it divides the journey from Nyungwe to the volcanoes into two drives of perhaps three to four hours each, in place of one very long day on mountain roads.

One night gives you an afternoon on the water, the fishing canoes setting out at dusk, and an unhurried breakfast before you move on.

A second night makes room for more:

• The boat to Napoleon's Island and its colony of fruit bats
• Lunch on Amahoro Island
• A few hours on foot along the lakeshore path known as the Congo Nile Trail

It is also the simplest change to make to this route. Nothing on the lake is tied to a dated permit, so a night can be added here without disturbing the chimpanzee and gorilla dates on either side.

For both primates together, June, July and August, recommended months on our pages for every stop.

It is the long dry stretch: forest paths are as firm as they get at both ends of the trip, the lake lies still, and in Nyungwe the fruiting fig trees keep the chimpanzees busy feeding.

February is the pick of the shorter dry spell, and January and September are good months for the gorillas. The catch is demand, since dry-month gorilla permits go first and need booking furthest ahead.

The green months are a real option for the right traveller. In May, October and December you trade showers and muddier paths for easier permits, quieter trails and a forest at its most vivid, and the rains bring Nyungwe's strongest birding.

The months we advise against are April and November, the wettest at every stop, plus March for the gorilla leg, which we rate challenging on the volcanoes.

Yes. The fixed points are the two tracking permits, for the chimpanzees and for the gorillas.

Both are issued for a set date and both are limited to eight visitors per group per day, so those two dates are settled before anything else and the other nights arranged to suit.

The easy changes are at the edges:

• A second night on Lake Kivu
• A third night at Nyungwe for another attempt at the chimpanzees
• One Kigali night at the start in place of two

If long drives worry you, the leg to fly is the first. Kigali to Nyungwe is five to six hours by road, whereas flying to Kamembe on the scheduled service leaves only an hour or so by road, and a chartered helicopter, typically an Agusta, takes around half an hour.

If you want big game too, Akagera is a drive of two to three hours from the capital and slots in at the start.