9-Day Kenya & Rwanda Wildlife & Culture

Depart Nairobi and drive through the Rift Valley to the Masai Mara National Reserve, arriving by early afternoon. The journey takes approximately 5 to 6 hours with a stop at the Rift Valley escarpment viewpoint. Check into your lodge or tented camp and enjoy an afternoon game drive across the Mara plains. The reserve's open grasslands offer immediate Big Five sighting potential, with resident prides of lions, elephant herds, and buffalo groups often visible within the first hour.

Full day exploring the Masai Mara with morning and afternoon game drives. The morning drive targets predators while they are still active from the night's hunting. The Mara supports one of the highest densities of large predators in Africa, including an estimated 900 lions, 200 cheetahs, and significant leopard populations. Drive along the Mara River for hippo and crocodile sightings. Bush lunch in the reserve followed by afternoon exploration of different habitats.

Another day of expert game drives in the Masai Mara allows you to cover new ground and seek out species not yet encountered. Explore the Mara Triangle or the Oloololo Escarpment for panoramic views and different wildlife populations. An optional Maasai village visit offers cultural context for the landscape you have been exploring. Late afternoon game drive with sundowner stop before returning to camp.

Morning game drive followed by the drive to Nairobi. Connect with your afternoon flight to Kigali, arriving in the early evening. Transfer to a Kigali hotel and enjoy a welcome dinner featuring Rwandan cuisine. Rest and prepare for your Kigali city tour the next morning.

Begin the morning with a visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a deeply moving tribute to the 1994 genocide and a testament to Rwanda's extraordinary recovery. Continue with a brief city tour taking in Kigali's vibrant markets, modern architecture, and the Inema Arts Centre. After lunch, drive east to Akagera National Park, approximately 2.5 hours from Kigali. This beautiful park of savannah, swamps, and lakes along the Tanzanian border has been transformed by a partnership between the Rwanda Development Board and African Parks, with lions and rhinos successfully reintroduced. Check into your safari lodge.

Full day exploring Akagera National Park. Morning game drive through the park's savannah and woodland habitats, searching for lions, elephants, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, and the rare shoebill stork in the papyrus swamps. Akagera is Rwanda's only Big Five park and supports a rapidly growing wildlife population. In the afternoon, take a boat safari on Lake Ihema, the largest of several lakes within the park. The boat cruise brings you close to hippos, crocodiles, monitor lizards, and an impressive variety of waterbirds including African fish eagles and open-billed storks.

After a morning game drive in Akagera, drive west across Rwanda to Volcanoes National Park, approximately 4 to 5 hours. Rwanda's compact size means this cross-country drive is manageable in a day, passing through beautiful rolling hills and terraced agricultural landscapes that earned Rwanda its nickname as the Land of a Thousand Hills. Arrive at your lodge near the park in the late afternoon. Attend the gorilla trekking briefing and prepare for tomorrow.

Report to the park headquarters at 7:00am for your gorilla trekking briefing and group assignment. Enter the montane forest on the slopes of the Virunga volcanoes with your guide, trackers, and porters. Hike through zones of bamboo, hagenia woodland, and alpine meadow at altitudes up to 4,500m. The trek can take 1 to 4 hours each way, but the reward is one full hour face to face with a mountain gorilla family. Watch the silverback keep guard while juveniles tumble and wrestle and mothers nurse their young. The experience is intimate, humbling, and profoundly moving. Return to your lodge to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime encounter.

After breakfast, drive back to Kigali with time for final souvenir shopping at the Caplaki Craft Village or a coffee tasting at a local roastery showcasing Rwanda's renowned single-origin coffee. Transfer to Kigali International Airport for your departure flight. C.A.T.S can arrange onward flights to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, or other East African hubs, or a post-safari beach extension to Zanzibar.