Akagera National Park:
Tourist
Information
The
magic of the African bush
“Akagera, with all its complex
mix of terrains, vegetation and animal life…
is a very special place on earth,
a place to preserve at all costs for future generations.”
- Jean Pierre Vande, writing in
the award-winning conservation magazine Africa Environment & Wildlife.
Akagera comes as an exciting
surprise after the steep cultivated hills and breezy climate that characterize
the test of the country. Set at a relatively low altitude along the Tanzanian
border, this beautiful game reserve protects an archetypal African savannah
landscape of tangled acacia and
brachystegia bush, interspersed with patches of open grassland and a
dozen swamp-fringed lakes that follow the meandering course of the Akagera
River.
Akagera’s stirring and varied scenery is complemented by a superb range
of big game. Herds of elephant and buffalo are most likely to be encountered
when they emerge from the dense woodland to drink at the lakes, while lucky
visitors might stumble across a lion, a leopard or a spotted hyena. Giraffe and zebra are frequently seen in open
woodland, 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 magnificent Cape eland.
To camp alongside Akagera’s picturesque lakes is a truly mystical
introduction to the wonders of the African bush. Pods of 50 hippopotami grunt
and splutter throughout the day, while outsized crocodiles soak in the sun with
their vast jaws menacingly agape. Magically, the air is torn apart by the
unforgettable high duetting of a pair of fish eagles, asserting their status as
the uncontested king and queen of Africa’s waterways. Lining the lakes are
some of the continent’s densest concentrations of water birds – storks,
egrets, ibises, plovers, sandpipers, kingfishers and herons. The connecting
marshes are the haunt of localised
papyrus specialists such as the red, yellow and black papyrus gonolek, the secretive blue-headed
coucal, and the singularly bizarre shoebill stork – the latter perhaps the
most sought-after of all African birds.