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.
A 434 km round trip from Nzega - roughly 12 h 02 in the saddle. The stops in between: Nyungwe National Park, Gisakura Natural Forest, Nyungwe National Forest and back through Gisakura Natural Forest. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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.
Murambi sits on a green hill in southern Rwanda, and the buildings on it were meant to be a technical school. In April 1994, tens of thousands of Tutsi from the surrounding area gathered here, told that they would be protected, and instead the school became a place of mass killing. The number who died in a few days is estimated at around fifty thousand, though the exact toll is not known. After the genocide, bodies were exhumed and preserved with lime, and some are displayed in the school's classrooms, as a stark testimony that no visitor forgets. It is one of the most harrowing places in Africa, and it is now a national memorial and, since 2023, a World Heritage site along with Nyamata, Bisesero and the memorial in Kigali.
Read the complete Murambi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murambi 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 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Gisakura Natural Forest.
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.
about 156 km into the recorded legs you reach Gisakura Natural Forest. Next is Nyungwe National Forest.
Nyungwe is one of the oldest rainforests in Africa and one of the wettest, a block of mountain forest in the south-west of Rwanda that survived the ice ages when so much of the continent dried out. It holds around a thousand square kilometres of dense growth on steep ridges between about 1,600 and 3,000 metres, and it shelters thirteen species of primate, including chimpanzees, L'Hoest's monkeys and large troops of black-and-white Angolan colobus that move through the canopy in loud, tumbling groups. Birdlife is exceptional, with over three hundred species, many found only in the Albertine Rift. Some of the headwaters of the Nile are said to start in its streams.
Read the complete Nyungwe National Forest write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nyungwe National Forest, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Gisakura Natural Forest sits at 143 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 361 km into the recorded legs. Next is Murambi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Murambi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murambi closes the day.
Murambi → Nyungwe National Park is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nyungwe National Park → Gisakura Natural Forest is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gisakura Natural Forest → Nyungwe National Forest is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nyungwe National Forest → back through Gisakura Natural Forest is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Gisakura Natural Forest → back through Nyungwe National Park is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Nyungwe National Park → Murambi is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.