Why visit Nyungwe forest national park
Why visit Nyungwe forest national park? In this article, we are going to tell you some of the reasons as to why you shouldn’t miss out on visiting Nyungwe forest national park. Nyungwe forest national park is among the 4 national parks in a small country Rwanda also known as a country of a thousand hills. Nyungwe forest national park is located in the southwestern part of the country in Rusizi district covering 970 sq. km. A lot of attractions in Nyungwe forest national park are the reason tourists need to visit this park and they do include chimpanzees, monkeys, birds, plant species, waterfalls, and the canopy walk.
Nyungwe forest national park is home to endangered chimpanzees
Nyungwe forest national park is the first park every traveler thinks about when it comes to chimpanzee trekking reason being it has the highest number of chimpanzees. Nyungwe forest national park has about 500 chimpanzees living in Cyamudongo and Nyungwe forests and 2 families are fully habituated for trekking. Trekking the chimpanzees of Nyungwe forest national park is done by persons above 15 years of age and the permits do allow trekkers to be with chimpanzees for 1 hour learning about their habits, taking photos, and watching them do daily activities.
Nyungwe forest national park hosts the highest number of primates in Rwanda
We have already talked about chimpanzees but there are other more than 12 primates in Nyungwe forest national park. These primates include vervet monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, l’hoest’s monkeys, blue monkeys, grey-checked mangabeys, golden monkeys, owl-faced monkeys, crowned monkeys, dent’s mona monkey, and olive baboon. In the above primates, it’s the black and white colobus monkeys that are fully habituated so tourists can book their permits and trek them any time of the year.
Nyungwe forest national park has a canopy walk.
The canopy is the other reason you need to visit Nyungwe forest national park, it is one of its kind in this park and East Africa as well. It’s done on a bridge that is raised 50m from the ground and 90 meters long giving tourists an aerial view of the surrounding hills, lakes, rivers, waterfalls in the park, plants, birds, primates, and mammals among others.
Nyungwe forest national park hosts over 310 bird species
The other reason to visit Nyungwe forest national park is to encounter different bird species since it’s among the best birding spots in the country. Birds of Nyungwe forest national park are seen in the different spots of the park with a help of a well-trained ranger guide that knows about a number of bird species and the birds to encounter in Nyungwe include Albertine owlet, strange weaver, Neumann’s warbler, Kivu ground thrush, stripe-breasted tit, Rwenzori turaco, regal sunbird, Rwenzori Apalis, handsome spurfowl, and buff-throated Apalis.
Other notable bird species in Nyungwe forest national park include shelley’s crimsonwing, archer’s robin-chat, red-throated alethe, dwarf honeyguide, Archer’s robin-chat, yellow-eyed black flycatcher, Rockefeller’s sunbird, red sunbird, red-throated alethe, Rwenzori nightjar, blue-headed sunbird, and mountain masked Apalis among others.
There are plenty of activities that can be done in Nyungwe forest national park
Tourists need to visit Nyungwe forest national park because a lot of activities can be done in this park. Nyungwe is just 970 sq. km but there are a lot of activities done inside the park such as birding, chimpanzee trekking, Angolan colobus monkey trekking, canopy walk, nature walks, hiking, and community visits among others.
Nyungwe forest national park is safe
Tourists should visit Nyungwe forest national park because it’s one of the safest national parks in the country. Nyungwe forest national park has several armed rangers that are well trained to protect all the tourists from dangerous wild animals or any stranger in the park. While in Nyungwe forest national park, you don’t have to worry about your property being stolen or animals attacking you although this doesn’t mean that you should attack them. At the entrance of the park, there are security personnel that check all people before entering the park in case they have weapons or harmful devices.
Nyungwe forest national park can be visited at any time of the year.
Nyungwe forest national park has 2 seasons in a year and all these seasons, the park is always open. Nyungwe has the dry season which is the best season to visit the park according to travelers and then the rainy season which favors the budget travelers. The rainy season happens from March to May and October to November and is characterized by plenty of rainfall which makes the trekking trails muddy and slippery, the vegetation is tall with in clear views of animals, and the roads to the park are impassable. The rainy season favors budget travelers because lodges give put huge discounts on accommodation.
The dry seasons of June to October and December to February are the best for a visit to Nyungwe forest national park because little or rainfall leaves the trekking trails less muddy and not slippery, the vegetation short giving clear views of the park animals and the roads leading to the park slippery.
Nyungwe forest national park has all kinds of accommodation
The last reason you need to visit Nyungwe forest national park is the park has one of the best accommodation facilities in the country. The accommodations of Nyungwe forest national park are not located inside the park but rather outside the park premises. The accommodation facilities favor all kinds of travelers because they range from budget to mid-range to luxury options such as One & Only Nyungwe House, Nyungwe Top View Hotel, Gisakura Guest House, Gisakura Family Hostel, E.R.A Gisakura Visitor Guesthouse, Emeraude Kivu Resort, Peace Guesthouse, Hotel du Lac, Rusizi Progress Hotel, Golden Monkey Hotels, Comoran Lodge, and Delta Resort Hotel among others.
Nyungwe forest national park is easily accessed
Nyungwe forest national park can be accessed by road transport and air transport within just a day. By air transport, Nyungwe forest national park can be accessed in a few minutes by using chattered flights from Kigali international airport to One & Only Nyungwe Helipad or Kamembe airport which are near Nyungwe forest national park using Akagera Aviation. By road transport, the journey fr0om Kigali to the park takes 4-5 hours of beautiful views of the surroundings, rolling hills, smiling people, and stopovers.
