Out of Africa: Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya & Tanzania (2012)

Following our final adventures in Nairobi (please refer to Day 34 of the main trip), we’ll share dinner at a local restaurant, then return to our hotel to relax for the evening. Prepare to fly out to Kigali, Rwanda tomorrow.

After breakfast, we fly to Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali. After arriving in Kigali, we check into our hotel and then enjoy a Welcome Briefing and Lunch, followed by an afternoon city tour.

Kigali is an attractive city with lush greenery and lots of flowering trees, and it is now considered one the safest and friendliest of all of Africa's capitals. Situated along a ridge and extending on both sides to a valley floor, there are superb views of the intensely cultivated and terraced mountains that surround the city. During our city tour, many of the government buildings may also still reveal some of the scars of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when in 100 days, up to one million people (85 percent of the Tutsi population) lost their lives after an aircraft carrying the country’s president was shot down. We’ll learn about the horrific events that transpired during this dark period of history on our visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, which is constructed on a site where more than 250,000 of the victims are buried—and some of the genocide survivors now serve as guides. The Center includes three permanent exhibitions, one of which documents the genocide of 1994, another is a children's memorial, and a third exhibition recounts the history of genocidal violence around the world. Together they form a stirring tribute to the evils of genocide everywhere and a powerful educational tool for the next generation of Rwandans.

We return to our hotel late in the afternoon. Dinner is on our own this evening.

Today, we travel outside Kigali for a unique cultural experience at the Rwandan Millennium Village of Mayange in Bugesera, a poor district traumatized by generations of war and environmental destruction that has contributed to its extreme poverty. Part of an ambitious project to reduce poverty in Africa, Mayange is also a shining example of how survivors and perpetrators of the genocide have managed to put aside the past to work and live together. The Millennium Villages Project has been working in Rwanda since December 2005 to empower members of the community to create their own tourism cooperative and develop other skills to improve their economic status.

After about a 45-minute drive from Kigali, we’ll be greeted by a member of the Millennium Villages Project for a brief introduction to the community, followed by a visit to a nearby genocide memorial site. Throughout the day, we gain insight into this unique community. We learn about agricultural successes during visits with local farmers and then interact with children during a visit to the Mayange Primary School. We also visit the Mayange Health Center and a basket-weaving cooperative to see how it has benefitted from micro-enterprise loans given to village members. Later in the afternoon, we are welcomed to an ubusabane, which is a traditional community celebration for the opportunity to witness some native dancing, and enjoy some of Rwanda’s traditional food and drink, and hear personal testimonies from villagers about how genocide survivors and perpetrators manage to live together in harmony.

Later we return to our hotel in Kigali. Dinner is on our own this evening.

After breakfast, we drive to Ruhengeri, our gateway to Parc Nacional des Volcans. Ruhengeri is a small town with stunning views of a series of volcanoes to the north and west. We arrive at our lodge around noon and enjoy a free afternoon here.

Prepare for tomorrow’s gorilla trek in the national park. Mountain gorillas are the world's largest living primates and one of the most endangered. There are just over 700 remaining in the world today, living only in the mountain rainforests of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They live in large social groups consisting of a dominant silverback male (the hair turns silver at maturity, which is approximately 13 years old), along with three or four females and a number of other juvenile "black-backs" and infants. They are primarily vegetarians, and will spend the majority of their time on the ground during the day, rarely moving more than a half-mile in the entire day. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view), this makes them some of the easiest primates to track. We enjoy an included dinner at our lodge this evening.

This morning we take a short drive to the Kinigi Trekking Station in Parc Nacional des Volcans, situated in Rwanda’s border region with Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Skilled trackers will have gone on ahead to locate one of the habituated populations of Mountain Gorillas, and will contact our expert gorilla guide. Our expert local guide will then set out with a group of eight travelers (the maximum number allowed) on a trek that typically involves 1.5 hours of walking over steep, rugged terrain deep into the forest. Interactions should be relatively easy since the gorillas are not as active during the morning hours. Every encounter is different, but if we are fortunate, our close-up experience with the most rare of all the apes in their last fragile environment will be a memorable one. Please note: As overexposure to humans is harmful to the gorillas, our contact is limited to one hour—and there is always the possibility that they may become agitated and retreat back into the bush in less than our allotted time.

This afternoon we return to Ruhengeri for lunch before transferring back to Kigali. Tonight, we enjoy a Farewell Dinner to celebrate and relive the memories of our Rwandan adventure.

After a leisurely breakfast, we have the morning free before we fly back to the U.S. via Nairobi and London.