Akagera National Park
Akagera National Park is located in the east of Rwanda. The park covers over 2500 square kilometers of savannah.
It is perhaps misleading to compare Akagera to East Africa's finest parks but it is well worth a visit if not for the stunning scenery and vistas across Lake Ilhema. Akagera National Park could not be more different in mood and characteristics to the breezy cultivated hills that distinguish much of Rwanda. Dominated scenically by the maze of swamps and lakes that follow the meandering path of the Akagera River, the most remote source of the Nile, beautiful undulating plains with dense, broad-leafed woodland, lighter acacia woodland and rolling grassland with an extensive series of lakes linked by papyrus swamps forming a sprawling wetland.
Akagera is, above all, big game country! Herds of elephant and buffalo emerge from the woodland to drink at the lakes. Although it does not have lion in the same prolific numbers as some of the other National Parks in Africa, wildlife such as leopard, spotted hyena, buffalo, giraffe, hippo and 11 species of antelope including the elusive sitatunga can be spotted throughout the park. In addition, Akagera National Park is after Nyungwe National Park, the most important ornithological habitat in Rwanda with over 500 different species of birds.
It is best not to visit the park in the rainy season, December, March and April, since many of the routes become impassable.