Akagera National ParkRwanda

Akagera has beautiful undulating plains with dense, broad-leafed woodland, lighter acacia woodland and rolling grassland with a extensive series of lakes linked by papyrus swamps forming a sprawling wetland. The game in the park is recovering after years of poaching and human presence, with Elephant, Buffalo, Giraffe and Lion and different Antelope beginning to be seen. Akagera is probably the best place in Africa to view papyrus swamp endemics such Sitatunga Antelope and the Shoebill Stork.

The Akagera National Park covers 1,200km in eastern Rwanda, against the Tanzanian border. It is dominated scenically by the labyrinth of swamps and lakes that follow the meandering course of the Akagera River.

The Akagera River is the most remote source of the Nile, this is an archetypal African savannah landscape of tangled acacia woodland interspersed with open grassland. The park is named for the Kahera River which flows along its eastern boundary feeding into several lakes the largest of which is Lake Ihema.

Akagera is, above all, big game country! Herds of elephant and buffalo emerge from the woodland to drink at the lakes, while lucky visitors might stumble across a spotted hyena or even a stray lion. Giraffe and zebra amble through the savannah, and more than a dozen types of antelope inhabit the park, most commonly the handsome chestnut-coated impala, but also the diminutive oribi and secretive bushbuck, as well as the ungainly tsessebe and the world's largest antelope, the statuesque Cape eland