CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
392 km from Kibuye to Kibuye, about 7 h 42 of riding. The stops in between: Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, Cyamudongo Natural Forest and back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. Much of it runs through woodland.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 120 km this is Rwanda Congo Nile Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bisesero is a place where the story is carried by the hills themselves. In April 1994, in the first weeks of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, thousands of people from the surrounding area fled to the steep, wooded ridges of Bisesero, above Lake Kivu, and held out for weeks against armed attackers with sticks, stones and whatever they could find. They were eventually overwhelmed, and tens of thousands were killed in the area, in one of the worst massacres of the genocide. Today a memorial site stands on the hillside, with mass graves and a small museum, and survivors and guides are on hand to explain what happened.
Read the complete Bisesero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bisesero is where the day begins. Next is Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata.
This is a place to arrive quietly. Both belong to the group of four genocide memorials, Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi in Kigali and Bisesero, that UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2023, recognising them as places of remembrance of the genocide against the Tutsi, in which some eight hundred thousand to a million people were murdered in about a hundred days.
Read the complete Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cyamudongo Natural Forest.
In the far southwest corner of Rwanda, the land drops toward Lake Kivu and the Ruzizi river, and the green hills here are mostly tea, banana and small farms. Cyamudongo is the exception: a patch of natural forest, a few hundred hectares at most, standing as an island of tall trees in the middle of cultivation. It is separated from the great Nyungwe forest by a belt of farmland, yet it still shelters a small population of chimpanzees, along with other primates and a remarkable range of birds and butterflies.
Read the complete Cyamudongo Natural Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 198 km into the recorded legs you reach Cyamudongo Natural Forest. Next is back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, late in the day. Next is Bisesero.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bisesero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bisesero. That is the ride.
Bisesero → Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → Cyamudongo Natural Forest is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cyamudongo Natural Forest → back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → Bisesero is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.