On the last day in the east the team visited Akagera National Park and went on a 5 hour safari with our two vans, barely making it at a few points. At one time  the park was comprised of nearly double the area, but, in more recent years the government shrunk down the area of the park and used the land to resettle people who had been displaced from the genocide (or even earlier genocides). Many who resettled in this area left Rwanda in 1959 with family, friends and neighbors.

Today the park still covers a large distance of land on the Rwandan/Tanzanian border. The government recently prepared a north entrance to the park which just opened this year. You have the option of going from the North entrance all the way through the park and exiting the south entrance, this takes about 6 hours and required a solid 4 wheel drive vehicle. What we did was spend about four hours in the northern area of the park looping through and around both dense bush and open fields.

We had a great time and saw a variety of animals including hippopotamus, giraffe, gazelle, snake, water buffalo, zebras and many more! Check out some of the pictures below, and, to see more pictures click on the slideshow image at the end of this post.

Click below to see more pictures from the Safari!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 11:39 am and is filed under Photography, Rwanda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.