Nyungwe lies in Rwanda’s southwest, around five hours by road from Kigali, or a short commercial flight followed by a road transfer. The road journey itself is part of the experience, passing through Rwanda’s rolling hills, tea and coffee plantations and small villages before reaching a vast landscape of dense rainforest.

Covering more than 1,000 square kilometres, Nyungwe feels markedly different from the volcanic terrain of Volcanoes National Park. The forest is denser, the sounds more pronounced and the experience immediately more immersive.

Several habituated chimpanzee communities can be trekked in and around Nyungwe, including in the smaller Cyamudongo Forest. Visitor numbers are deliberately limited, keeping the experience intimate and minimising the impact on the chimpanzees.

The day starts early.

Trackers enter the forest ahead of guests to locate the chimpanzees, communicating with guides as the morning unfolds. This is important because chimpanzees rarely make things easy for you. Unlike gorillas, which can spend considerable periods feeding and resting in one area, chimpanzees are constantly moving.

That unpredictability is part of the experience.

The difficulty and duration of the trek vary considerably depending on where the chimpanzees are that morning. At times, reaching them means leaving the established trail and moving through thick vegetation and steeper terrain.

A reasonable level of fitness certainly helps, but so does arriving with the understanding that this is not a choreographed wildlife encounter. You are entering their environment and following their movements.

One of my strongest memories of Nyungwe is the sound. 

You may hear the chimpanzees well before you see them, their calls carrying through the forest, branches moving overhead and sudden bursts of activity somewhere within the canopy. 

Then you catch sight of one. 

The atmosphere is completely different from sitting quietly with a family of mountain gorillas. Chimpanzees are fast, social and expressive. They forage, chase one another, climb and move through the trees with extraordinary agility. At times, simply keeping track of where to look becomes part of the excitement. 

Once the chimpanzees are located, you have up to an hour with them. It passes remarkably quickly. 

There is an energy to the encounter that is difficult to convey until you experience it. Gorilla trekking can feel quiet and contemplative; chimpanzee trekking is more dynamic and unpredictable. Neither is necessarily better than the other. They are simply very different experiences. 

Want to see what it’s really like? Watch this video to see more of Steve’s experience and hear the calls of the chimps for yourself.

For travellers visiting Rwanda, the gorillas will understandably remain the centrepiece of most itineraries. But if time allows, Nyungwe adds considerably more depth to the journey.

Experiencing both gives you two completely different perspectives on Rwanda’s primates and landscapes: the mountain forests and calm gorillas of Volcanoes National Park, followed by the ancient rainforest and fast-moving chimpanzees of Nyungwe.

There is also much more to Nyungwe than chimpanzees. The park is home to exceptional birdlife and twelve other primate species, including colobus monkeys, while the 70-metre-high canopy walkway provides an entirely different perspective over the forest. The surrounding tea country and beautiful southwestern highlands make the journey more than worthwhile.

Rwanda is often defined by its mountain gorillas. They deserve the attention.

But they are only part of the story. My time and experiences in Nyungwe were unforgettable and reinforced that Rwanda is a destination worth exploring more deeply, rather than somewhere to visit for a single remarkable encounter.

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