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.
It goes by way of Nyungwe National Park, Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata, Nyamata and back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,200 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 83 km this is Rwanda Congo Nile Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the far southwest of Rwanda, a small patch of forest surrounded by tea plantations is home to one of the most charming wildlife encounters in Africa. Gisakura forest lies on the western edge of Nyungwe National Park, near the tea estate that shares its name, and a large troop of Ruwenzori colobus monkeys lives there, black and white with long tails and flowing capes of fur. Watching them leap through the canopy, sometimes in groups of dozens, is a joy. The forest is a remnant of the great montane rainforest that once covered these mountains, isolated now by the tea fields.
Read the complete Gisakura Natural Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gisakura Natural Forest is where the day begins. Next is Nyungwe National Park.
Nyungwe is one of the oldest rainforests in Africa, a mountain forest spread over the ridges of south-western Rwanda between Lake Kivu and the Burundi border. It is high, wet and green in a way that makes the rest of the world feel dry: tree ferns taller than a house, orchids on the branches, mist pouring through the valleys in the morning, and the sound of water everywhere. The ridges here form part of the great divide between the Congo and Nile basins, and Rwanda proudly claims one of the remotest sources of the Nile in these hills.
Read the complete Nyungwe National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nyungwe National Park comes up about 83 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata. Next is Nyamata.
The church at Nyamata is a plain brick building with a corrugated iron roof, and what it holds is the memory of one of the worst weeks of the twentieth century. In April 1994, during the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, thousands of people from the surrounding villages took refuge in the church, as they had in earlier waves of violence, assuming that a house of God would protect them. It did not. Killers entered with grenades, machetes and clubs, and in the days that followed some ten thousand people died in and around the church. Today it is a memorial. The clothes of the victims lie in piles on the pews, the altar cloth is still stained, and in an underground vault the remains of tens of thousands from the district are kept in coffins and on shelves.
Read the complete Nyamata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nyamata, about halfway. 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 sits at 227 km, about halfway. Next is back through Nyungwe National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nyungwe National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nyungwe National Park comes up about 452 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gisakura Natural Forest.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gisakura Natural Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gisakura Natural Forest closes the day.
Gisakura Natural Forest → Nyungwe National Park is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nyungwe National Park → Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → Nyamata is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nyamata → back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Memorial sites of the Genocide: Nyamata → back through Nyungwe National Park is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nyungwe National Park → Gisakura Natural Forest is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.