Volcanoes National Park

Volcanoes National Park Map

Bordering Uganda, the DRC and Rwanda are the Virunga Volcanoes- a mountain range comprising of six extinct and three active volcanoes.

The Volcanoes National Park is the Rwandan portion of this range and protects 300 mountain gorillas (half the world's existing population).

The park is named after a rugged chain of steep volcanoes whose fertile links help hold together one of natures more exquisite and rare necklaces.

It was in this area that conservationist Dian Fossey spent 20 years of her life studying gorillas, and it is largely thanks to her work that poaching was curtailed in time to save some of these creatures. The Park was made famous by the international blockbuster 'Gorillas in the Mist' (1988), filmed on location and chronicling her life's work.

Although the film, which hit cinemas three years after her brutal and still unsolved death, generated a large amount of interest, the 90's saw sporadic closure and re-opening of the park due to poacher violence and the genocide affecting Rwanda at this time.

Since 1999, it's been business as usual (if one can consider anything about the place or its history usual), and nowadays Gorilla tracking is not the only activity tourists partake in. Hiking, nature walks and mountain climbing are alternative activities and are both popular and well organised.

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