Nyungwe Forest National Park is situated in the South Western part Rwanda bordering Burundi in the South, Lake Kivu and the Democratic Republic of Congo western part of Nyungwe forest National Park.
Nyungwe forest national park covers an area about 1020 sq.km and has an elevation of 1600-2950m above sea level. The forest receives an annual rainfall of 2000mm and weather changes are a must while in the forest for chimpanzee tracking which is the main activity in the primate country. This has made Rwanda the place of thousand hills a proud destination for most travelers.
Nyungwe Forest was established as a national park in 2004, a time when Rwanda was on the list of top ten tourist destinations according to Lonely Planet ratings. The country was also decidedly looking to expand its tourism sector and determined to grow tourist numbers at the time. Nyungwe forest is a water catchment for Rwanda’s wildlife and contains a number natural resources that are very vital to the people of Rwanda.
Nyungwe forest national park is the source of the two of Africa’s great rivers. Meaning when the forest receives Rain, it feeds the Nile River and river Congo on the western side. Nyungwe forest national park is home to over 300 different bird species, many butterflies, orchids, 75 mammal species including the 13 primates, and there have also been the sightings of the golden monkeys.
The 13 primate species include: the chimpanzees making the forest famous for chimpanzee trekking, you can also trek the grey cheeked Mangabeys and Ruwenzori colobus Monkeys in Nyungwe Forest. These monkeys can also be seen in large groups of up to 300 colobus monkeys. You can as well track any of the primate group, you will likely see some other monkeys along the trek.
The many monkeys seen along the 13 hiking trials include; L’ Hoest’s monkey, the Owl faced monkeys, Mona monkey and the blue monkeys. The forest is also a primate country and you can also trek the chimps, the gray cheeked and the Colobus monkeys in the ancient forest.
Nyungwe forest national park is a hiker’s paradise, the national park has 13 hiking trails with over 130 km of the trails throughout the forest. One can spend 7 days hiking the many trails of the rainforest, exploring and discovering the unexploited dense forest of the ancient, while viewing a number of wildlife habitats within in the forest.
Hiking in Nyungwe Forest is an interesting moment of discovering in a primal rain forest that will simply amazing many visitors with its fairy tale like appearance, its wildlife, birds, primates, plants, flowers, butterflies and the trees species.
The private hikes last from 1 to 8 hours in moving length plus the time spend and most hiking trial can also be completed in case you are in reasonable physical shape. One can be only be recommended to do the hiking when is good health conditions.
Major tourism activities in the forest include:
