Volcanoes National Park is best known as Rwanda's premier destination for mountain gorilla trekking. It shelters the highest number of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Conservation Area, and its 2-hour drive from Kigali makes it the most accessible gorilla park in the region.
Located in the far northwest of Rwanda, roughly two hours' drive from Kigali International Airport, Volcanoes National Park sits amid the towering, mist-shrouded Virunga Mountains near the borders of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The park covers approximately 160 square kilometres of rainforest, bamboo, and volcanic terrain, and is home to five of the eight Virunga volcanoes, including Bisoke, Gahinga, Karisimbi, Muhabura, and Sabyinyo. It was gazetted in 1925 and later became the base for Dian Fossey, the American primatologist who dedicated eighteen years of her life to studying the mountain gorillas. Fossey is buried at her research site beside the grave of Digit, one of the gorillas she studied and protected until her assassination in 1985, and in 2005 Rwanda established the annual Kwita Iziina baby gorilla naming ceremony to mark ongoing conservation efforts. The park's rugged, high-altitude landscape, thick with bamboo forest, volcanic ridges, and alpine meadows, is often blanketed in mist, giving it a dramatic, otherworldly atmosphere.
Mountain gorilla, Golden monkey, Spotted hyena, African buffalo, Forest elephant, Black-fronted duiker, Bushbuck, Giant forest hog, Bushpig, L'Hoest's monkey, Blue monkey, Serval cat, African civet, Side-striped jackal, Bat-eared fox, Cape clawless otter, Genet, Tree hyrax, Red duiker, Grey duiker
Rwenzori turaco, Handsome francolin, Dusky crimsonwing, Grauer's swamp warbler, Ruwenzori nightjar, Archer's ground robin, Kivu ground thrush, Red-faced woodland warbler, Rwenzori batis, Regal sunbird, Blue-headed sunbird, Purple-breasted sunbird, Strange weaver, Shelley's crimson-wing, Yellow-eyed black flycatcher, Cinnamon-chested bee-eater, White-starred robin, African hill babbler, Doherty's bushshrike, Streaky seedeater
R & M Wild Safaris