Lake Ihema in Akagera National Park
Lake Ihema in Akagera National Park
Lake Ihema is in the Akagera National Park, where the big five animals in Rwanda call home. To access Lake Ihema, one should first access Akagera National Park. Akagera is one of Rwanda’s most rewarding national parks besides Volcanoes National Park and Nyungwe National Park. There are many activities in Akagera National Park that one can carry out. This is due to several attractions that one can enjoy while on an exciting trip.
Accessing Lake Ihema in Akagera National Park
To visit Lake Ihema on your Rwanda tour, you should first access Akagera National Park. This is because you find the lake within the national park. Akagera National Park is in the eastern part of Rwanda along the border with Tanzania.
You can access Akagera National Park by road transport. After your flight to Kigali International Airport, you will get road transport means to the park. Depending on your location, you can access the different gates that is the northern or the southern gates. From Kigali city, you will be able to reach the park within two and a half hours. The distance from the city to the park is about 110km. For self-drive tourists, it is advisable to use private means of road transport. This is because public transport means such as buses will take a long time to reach the park.
Still, self-drive tourists should hire a guide once they access the park at the park entrance. They are knowledgeable about the park for you to have an exciting trip in the park. While on your way to tour Lake Ihema, you will have more benefits. You will participate in other activities and see several attractions in Akagera National Park which are as follows.
Additional Benefits to Visiting Lake Ihema
Tracking the Big Five animals
Akagera National Park is the only place where you can find the big five animals in Rwanda. It boasts of all the big 5 animals say the leopard, lion, buffalos, rhinos, elephants, and buffalos. You can see these animals during the game drives. If you are interested in visiting Akagera National Park to see all the big five animals, you will have the most exciting adventure. This is so because the size of the park will give you ease to see the animal species in the shortest time possible. Yet, this is not the case in some parks that have the big five animals. Therefore, for the big 5 sightings, choose to visit Akagera National Park.
Game drives
In Akagera National Park, you will have the chance to carry out game drives. Interesting about the game drives you can have the morning game drive in the park and the nocturnal game drives. There are animals that you may see in the morning game drives but not in the night game drives. These nocturnal animals include hyenas, and lions trying hard to catch prey for their dinner. Hence, it is such a nice display to catch. Some of the animals that cannot be seen during the day can be seen in the nocturnal game drives.
Other attractions and activities that you can carry out include cultural encounters. You can carry this out in the Humure refugee village and the Inema crafts village. Here, you will see the culture of Rwanda in detail through art. The Humure refugee village will teach you several cultural values in Rwanda. These include their traditional dress code and food among other interesting cultural attributes. Visiting Akagera National Park will enable you to have a great time because it is one of the Rwanda tour packages that will ensure you have a great time in the country but among the activities and attractions that can be seen in the park, one-to-point out is Lake Ihema which will offer amazing experiences in the park.
Lake Ihema Biodiversity and Activities
Lake Ihema is in the southern part of Akagera National Park. The lake gets its water from a river tributary of the Kagera River which supplies several lakes in the park. Among the lake in the park, it is clear to note that Lake Ihema is the biggest lake in the park.
The lake is blessed with rich biodiversity including several attractions like 155 bird species including the endangered shoe bill stork, papyrus gonolek, jacanas Sandpipers, Malachite Kingfisher, and herons among other bird species. Around the lake, you will see some papyrus swamps where you will see many bird species, hippos, buffalos, and many more. The papyrus also acts as a bird sanctuary for many bird species in the park. This thus makes it a great birding destination while in the park.
While visiting Akagera National Park to visit Lake Ihema, you will carry out several activities as explained below but you can also participate in many activities in other areas of the park to have an amazing experience.
Birding on Lake Ihema
You can see several bird species on the boat cruise on the lake or during your game drive in the park. The lake attracts several water birds and other bird species that you can see. These include flycatchers, sunbirds, Cardinal Woodpeckers and weavers, White-tailed blue monard, and African Harrier Hawks. Also, you can see grey-crowned cranes, Herons, egrets, the cardinal woodpecker, the levillant cuckoo, slender-billed baglafetch, weavers, and levillant cuckoos. You can see these birds either trying to get prey from the lake or lining up near the animals like the buffaloes which are among the common animals in the park.
Sport fishing
One of the most interesting activities on Lake Ihema is the sport fishing. For any person to take part in sport fishing in Akagera National Park, they should have a sport fishing license. This helps the one doing it to have a great time and because the park focuses more on conservation, the activity involves catch and release. Also, you should only catch mature fish, not young ones. However, as a way of rewarding the tourists who participate in the activity a reward of one fish is given to them to keep among the fish caught.
Game viewing
While at the lake, you will get exceptional views of the park that will be rewarding while in the park, at the lake you will see several animal species that can be seen including rhinos and buffalos trying to take a dip in the water of the lake, elephants quenching their thirst you will also have a chance to see the egrets and several bird species on the backs of the elephants which is a nice view of co-existence among the wild animals in the park. Contact us for a safari to Akagera National Parka and Lake Ihema by filling out the form below.
