Kibira
Burundi's great mountain forest on the watershed between the Congo and the Nile, with chimpanzees under the canopy and tea estates at its edge.
- Arrival
- Bujumbura Melchior Ndadaye · BJM
- To the park
- About 2 to 3 hours by road from Bujumbura
- Private jets
- Into BJM, then by road
- Best time
- June to September
The city
One forest, two rivers.
Kibira covers some 400 square kilometres of montane forest along the Congo–Nile divide, from Muramvya north to the Rwandan border, where it runs on without a break into Nyungwe. Kings hunted here until 1933; then it became a forest reserve, and later a national park.
Chimpanzees and black-and-white colobus share the trees with ninety-odd other mammals and about two hundred birds, the great blue turaco among them. There is no lodge in the forest: visitors come up from Bujumbura for the day, two to three hours each way, and do best in the dry months from June to September.
- Chimpanzee trekking Walks into the forest after the chimpanzees, with baboons, L'Hoest's and red-tailed monkeys along the way.
- Teza and Rwegura Tea estates at the forest's edge, where visitors can try picking and see the leaf processed.
- Forest birds About two hundred species, the country's most important site for birds of the montane forest.
Arriving
Bujumbura, then the hills.
The forest lies about fifty kilometres north-east of Bujumbura's airport as the crow flies. All arrivals land there and continue by road, two to three hours up into the hills.
- Nairobi 1 h 25
- Addis Ababa 2 h 30
- Kuwait City 5 h 35
- Lisbon 8 h 10 long-range jet
- Bangkok 10 h 45 long-range jet
When to go
June to September.
These are Bujumbura's figures from the lakeshore; up in the forest it is cooler and damper. The dry season, from June to September, is the time for the trails; the rains return in October and are heaviest around April.
- 27° J 166
- 27° F 140
- 27° M 170
- 27° A 196
- 27° M 103
- 27° J 18
- 27° J 6
- 28° A 23
- 29° S 75
- 28° O 113
- 27° N 174
- 27° D 164
Flying to Kibira?
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