Rwanda

Rwanda is finally entering head-on among the safest and best-organised eco-tourism destinations on the African continent, just waiting to be discovered as it deserves to be. It’s a country in the limelight, which is winning the respect of the international community for its exemplary administrative management,

If “the land of a thousand hills” is best known for one of the bloodiest genocides on the African continent, it has also made headlines for the beautiful “gorillas in the mist” of Dian Fossey, a zoologist researcher who dedicated her life to their protection in the Volcanoes Park on Rwanda’s Virunga soil. Today, it is doubly exciting to retrace the paths where the researcher worked, right up to the sightings of these incredible animals, hidden among the bamboo and the misty nature, thanks to the myth that has been built around the emblematic figure of this environmental heroine.

But Rwanda is also much more. It is the country of gentle green slopes, grasslands and the wild savannahs of the Akagera Park, among elephants, buffalo, zebras, giraffes and impalas. It is the generous land of tea, coffee, tobacco and banana plantations, of the mild and fertile shores of Lake Kivu, a source of life for millions of people, a treasure trove of a precious microclimate and lake landscapes of incredible beauty, punctuated by the spectacular traditional pirogues of fishermen and their nocturnal lanterns. It is the cradle of ancient volcanic soils, to be discovered on adventurous treks up the 4,500-metre Karisimbi volcano, a privileged vantage point over the enchanting scenery of Rwanda’s forests and hills. Rwanda is also the place where the tropical forest mellows at altitude, in one of the largest remaining areas of mountainous rainforest in Africa, Nyungwe National Park, a watershed between the river systems of the immense Nile and the mighty Congo, in a precious habitat for dozens of primates, thousands of butterflies and orchids, to be admired from the top of a vertiginous suspended footbridge.

It is the home of the modern and very clean capital Kigali, with its manicured flowerbeds and colourful fabric markets, a city life with a cheerful, functional and dynamic atmosphere, which clashes with the memorial dedicated to the sad history of the genocide, guardian of names, photographic portraits, clothing and bone relics of the thousands of Tutsis who were slaughtered in 1994 by the Hutus, and which it is the duty of everyone not to forget.