Day 1 - Arrival - Kigali

You will be picked up at the airport. Kigali is a big city with friendly inhabitants. The city is scattered over several hills. It is developing rapidly, with shopping malls and office buildings. It is a safe city, and many claim it to be the tidiest urban area in Africa. You are not allowed to bring in plastic bags, and it is inconsiderate to through rubbish on the streets. We stay in a nice hotel with a swimming pool and a bar.

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Day 2 - Kigali - Butare

We start riding through the city streets that curve alongside the many hills. Getting out of the city is a challenge with big trucks climbing those same hills. But we quickly leave the tarmac and follow our journey through the countryside. We will stop for a simple lunch and then continue our way east to Butare, a town situated in central Rwanda. We stay at a simple but pleasant guesthouse.

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Day 3 - Butare - Cyanguvu

An adventurous day today! And at times a cold one, as we ascend towards the Nyungwa Forest, home to 13 monkey species including chimpanzees, golden meerkats, fringe monkeys and baboons. This park is one of the largest primeval forests in Central Africa. The vast, immense forest has many flora and fauna species. It is a bird watcher's paradise. We will drive partly through it, via the main asphalt road, and partly south of it, following gravel roads along the Burundi border. We will stay at a small border town with Congo. Ruhengeri is tour destination for the day. Every now and then the road is very bad. At the top of the lake we turn off the trail and ride alongside the many volcanoes of the Volcanoes National Park. This gives way for spectacular scenery.

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Day  4 - Cyanguvu – Gitesi

We will ride along the shores of Lake Kivu, enjoying the scenic route. Lake Kivu lake is believed to be one to five million years old and has a depth of 485 metres. Straddling the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kivu is one of a string of lakes lining the East African Rift Valley where the African continent is being slowly pulled apart by tectonic forces. The resulting stresses thin the Earth’s crust and trigger volcanic activity, creating hot springs below Kivu that feed hot water, carbon dioxide and methane into the lake’s bottom layers. Gitesi is a small town on the lake.

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Day 5 - Gitesi - Ruhangeri

We follow the coastline of Lake Kivu all day long. This is a mountainous area and therefore often offers beautiful views. We will largely take the famous Congo-Nile route, while our support car will follow a different route. Ruhengeri is the place we are going. Sometimes the road is very bad. At the top of the lake, we turn off and drive past the many volcanoes of the Volcanoes National Park of the same name. This produces spectacular images.

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Day 6 - Ruhangeri - Nyagatare

All day we drive through beautiful mountain areas and most of the route will be unpaved, sometimes narrow and difficult, sometimes wide and easy. We drive past tea and coffee plantations and beautiful lakes. It is one of the most challenging days of the trip. Nyagatare is a small – but growing - town with mainly simple hotels.

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Day 7 - Nyagatare - Akagera

We head our way to the south, where we ride through warm and low-lying plains. We can enjoy empty stretches of new highway with digital speed cameras checking our speed. We will still definitely enjoy some gravel roads along the Akagera National Park, a long stretch of protected area from north to south that borders Tanzania. The park includes savannah, woodland, and swamp habitats and a dozen lakes. After practically eliminating poaching in just five years, lions and black rhinos were reintroduced between 2015 and 2018, and white rhinos were introduced in 2021 in a conservation move to help protect the species.

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Day 8 - Akagera - Kigali

Today we head back to Kigali. Depending on the time left today and your travel schedule tomorrow we take a more challenging detour the southern part of Rwanda, near the Tanzania/ Burundi border, or we ride a more straightforward country road back to the capital. We will go back to the hotel where we started. If there is time in the afternoon, you can visit the genocide museum and the Hotel Milles Colinnes (the hotel Rwanda from the film of the same name). Alternatively, you can enjoy the hotel Sauna/massage facilities. Alternatively, you can plan some city explorations tomorrow.

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Day 9 - Kigali - Departure

Departure to the airport is often in the late afternoon or evening. If so, you have most of the day to explore the city, buy souvenirs, or rest at the swimming pool.