Nyungwe National Park Holidays

Learn the secrets of tea processing, from leaf to cup, on a guided tour of the on-site plantation. Nyungwe House has its own tea estate, Gisakura, which is owned and run by the local community. During the one-hour tour, you will learn how the popular black tea is made. You’ll get to pick the leaves and have a tasting session as you enjoy views over the lime-green tea fields, stretching to the rainforest and mountains beyond.

As you pick the leaves, you will be taught about the history of the tea estate, which began in 1952 when the bushes were planted in this western region of Rwanda. The tea is picked every 11 days and pruned once every four years for germination. Thanks to the volcanic soil here and high elevation, an amazing full-bodied black tea that has around seven different grades is produced here. While you’re out on the plantation you can take pictures with the tea pickers and chat with them about their experiences.

Afterwards, head into the tea lounge to learn about the production process. Once picked, the leaves are sent to the nearby tea factory where they’re dried, cut and fermented, sorted and packed. You’ll get to taste the different grades of high-quality tea, which has now become one of Rwanda’s largest exports. Each one has a different flavour to discover and they are paired with snacks like chocolate and scones. As an added extra you can also request to have a private meal in the tea plantation, surrounded by birds and beautiful scenery.

Doing a chimpanzee trek not only allows you to experience the daily activities and social structure of a chimpanzee family, but also gives you an opportunity to enjoy the forest environment where they live. The colours, the smells, the sounds, the fresh air and the views all make an unforgettable lifetime experience.

The treks start at 5am, which gives you a chance of spotting chimpanzees as they ‘de-nest’. Mornings are also ideal because it’s when the chimpanzees are at their most active – feeding, pant-hooting, grooming and so on. The whole trip takes between four and seven hours, including the drive to and from the nearest hotels.

There's never a 100% guarantee that you’ll see chimpanzees, but the guide and the trackers monitor them every day to try to make sure that visitors have a successful and memorable experience. Ensuring the safety of the visitors without compromising the safety of chimpanzees and their habitat is a priority for the trekking team. One of the studied communities in Nyungwe has the largest home range ever known for montane chimpanzee populations. It covers a wide band of altitudinal range, which offers a variety of vegetation and food resources and makes their tracking and movement predictable given the changing food availability at different levels of altitude and at different seasons in a year.

Depending on where the chimpanzees move to, you will have the bonus of amazing views of mountainous forest landscapes, often partly covered by the forest fog, and green tea plantations in the buffer zone near Gisakura and along the drive to Cyamudongo. Some parts of the forest will give you views of Lake Kivu on the horizon. In addition, there’s the possibility of seeing other primates, including L’Hoest’s monkey, Dent’s mona monkey and grey-cheeked mangabey, and colourful birds such as great blue turaco, the endemic Rwenzori turaco, Ross’s turaco and black-and-white-casqued hornbill along the way.

Treks are led by community guides who are young men and women from the immediate vicinity. The community freelance guides cooperative was initiated by Nyungwe Management Company based on the lessons and success story of African Parks in Akagera National Park. The trackers are also from the surrounding villages, as are the porters; in fact, more than 90% of the jobs in the park are held by people from the surrounding communities. 15% of the gross revenues are immediately paid by the park to fund priority development projects for the communities in close proximity to the park and to compensate them for any damage caused by the wildlife – mainly crop and livestock raiding.