Akagera National Park

Last Thursday we had a fabulous time visiting Akagera National Park. We left here at 4 am in order to arrive at the park by 6 am as many animals are easier seen in the early morning. We shared the day and the expenses with three young women who are staying at the YFC dorm building with us – more detail about them later.

The Kagera River forms part of the border between Tanzania and Rwanda. Before the genocide the park was over 2000 square km, but when thousands of refugees returned to Rwanda after the genocide in 1994, the government divided the park in half and gave land to those refugees who had nothing. Akagera National Park is now just over1000 square km in area.You might like to check out what Wikipedia says about the history of the park.

These are impala, one of 14 varietes of antelopes found in this park. Aren't they beautiful?

We had a brilliant time and saw many animals including giraffes, zebras, impala, water buffalo, elephants, baboons, velvet monkeys, topi, water buck, reed buck, hippos, crocs and many different varieties of birds.

 

Is he not very old and gorgeous?!! Just lying in the middle of the track!

There were so many highlights that it would be difficult to say what was the best, but probably it was towards the end of the day when we stood at the north of the park, only metres from a family of giraffes and looked out across the plains to see zebras, water buffalo, topi, impala, reed buck and oribi feeding peacefully together. Awesome! What amazing diversity our God has produced in His world.

 Giraffes - they spell serenity!

Topi - antelope also

These two baboons are abviously having a cleanup session, picking out ticks or whatever!

After many hours on very bumpy roads in the park, we came home at 8 pm VERY weary but fully satisfied with a really wonderful day at Akagera.