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Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi Guided Motorcycle Tour

Enjoy the diversity of 3 landlocked countries but filled with mountains and (crater) lakes. Uganda is known as ‘The Pearl of Africa’ while Rwanda is known as the “Land of a Thousand Hills”. This is a challenging motorcycle journey through two wonderful and diverse countries. You see the most beautiful parts of both Rwanda and Uganda. While being close neighbors, they are very different in culture, landscape, and development. Rwanda is a mountain-packed country where you ride challenging off-road tracks and ride along volcanos. In Uganda, you visit the gorillas and chimpanzees and ride through a national park and over beautiful scenic roads. Burundi is much less known and less developed, situated at the longest freshwater lake in the world. Unlike many sub-Saharan African countries, the borders of Burundi were not created by European powers. Instead, they were conceived by the original Burundian monarchy.

Key information

  • Terrain: 65% asphalt, 35% off-road
  • Bike: rental bike (Haojin 200cc or equivalent)
  • Mileage: 2,697 km / 1,676 miles
  • Daily rides: 120 - 240 km / 75 - 149 miles
  • Riding gear (not included): mandatory items include a helmet, motorcycle jacket with protection, gloves, a good strong pair of (motorcycle) trousers with protection or separate knee armour, and sturdy high (mountain) boots
  • Meals: most breakfasts

Meet the instructors

Remco
Read more

Highlights

  • Starts and ends in Kigali
  • Ride a beautiful route along the lakes in Burundi
  • Head to Lake Tanganyika, the world’s longest freshwater lake
  • Follow a coastal route north, enjoy lake views, and circle Monge Forest Reserve
  • Enjoy the curved coastal road along Lake Kivu, with its beautiful views
  • Accompanying mechanic in support vehicle + English tour guide on motorcycle
  • 21 nights accommodation + most breakfasts
  • Airport transfers

Skill level

  • Beginner
  • Intermediate
  • Advanced

16 days with instruction in English
The organizer also speaks: Dutch, German
Group size: 6-10 participants
Airport transfer included: Entebbe International Airport
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Accommodation

With a few exceptions, during this trip you will stay in comfortable hotels or tented camps, mostly with breakfast included.

Program

Route

  • Arrival - Kigali (156 km / 97 miles)
  • Kigali - Kirunda (156 km / 97 miles)
  • Kirunda - Gitega (159 km / 99 miles)
  • Gitega - Nyanza (170 km / 106 miles)
  • Nyanza - Bujumbura (140 km / 87 miles)
  • Bujumbura - Stay
  • Bujumbura - Cyangugu (155 km / 96 miles)
  • Cyangugu - Karongi (200 km / 124 miles)
  • Karongi - Ruhangeri (172 km / 107 miles)
  • Ruhangeri - Ruhija (150 km / 93 miles)
  • Ruhija - Stay
  • Ruhija - Dave the Cave (170 km / 106 miles)
  • Dave the Cave - Lake Nkurubu (130 km / 81 miles)
  • Lake Nkurubu - Mubende (225 km / 140 miles)
  • Mubende - Lake Mburo (180 km / 112 miles)
  • Lake Mburo - Lake Bunyoni (240 km / 149 miles)
  • Lake Bunyoni - Stay
  • Lake Bunyoni - Nyagatare (120 km / 75 miles)
  • Nyagatare - Akagera National Park (155 km / 96 miles)
  • Akagera National Park - Stay
  • Akagera National Park - Kigali (175 km / 109 miles)
  • Kigali - Departure

Detailed itinerary

Day 1: Arrival - Kigali

You arrive at Kigali airport in the evening. You will be picked up and taken to the hotel in the city. There you will meet your tour leader and the rest of the group.

Day 2: Kigali - Kirunda

A beautiful day straight away. You ride south out of the city and partly follow asphalt and then gravel again. You cross the border with Burundi. This takes some time. If you go quickly, you will ride a beautiful route along the lakes in Burundi. Kirunda is a small town with limited accommodation options.

Day 3: Kirunda - Gitega

In the morning you follow the main road, which has now been paved. You have lunch in the town of Ngozi. Then you alternate between unpaved paths and main roads towards Gitega, off course all through beautiful mountain areas.

Day 4: Gitega - Nyanza

You ride a beautiful off-road route through the mountains, past small villages that have not seen many foreigners yet, especially not on motorcycles. You plan for lunch at Butare, and explore the border with Tanzania, before you head to Lake Tanganyika. You stay in a simple hotel at the lake. Lake Tanganyika is the world’s longest freshwater lake, the second-deepest, and the second-largest in volume. It is also the second-largest of the African Great Lakes (after Lake Victoria).

Day 5: Nyanza - Bujumbura

You follow a coastal route up north, enjoy the lake views, before you circle around Monge Forest reserve. Via a narrow path you arrive on the main road close to the capital. Bujumbura is a quiet, small, well-organized city, beautifully situated on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. You stay in a nice place to recover from your first week of impressions.

Day 6: Bujumbura - Stay

You have time to relax at the lake, wash your clothes, explore the city and its markets, or take the bike for an optional afternoon ride.

Day 7: Bujumbura - Cyangugu

You start the engines and head back to Rwanda. From Bujumbura to the border with Rwanda you ride through the only lowland in the country. The road is straight and flat and you can cover quite a distance before the border. You will still find Congolese refugee camps here and there. The border crossing will be faster than the first because you take the motorcycles into the country of origin. After the border, you head towards Cyangugu; this is a quiet border town with Congo. You stay at the Lake Kivu shores.

Day 8: Cyangugu - Karongi

You start the morning detouring through the Nyongwe National Park. Here you will find many monkey species along the road and the park is full of special birds. Then you return back to Lake Kivu, and enjoy the curved coastal road along Lake Kivu, with its beautiful views. Lake Kivu is believed to be one to five million years old and has a depth of 485 meters. Straddling the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kivu is one of a string of lakes lining the East African Rift Valley where the African continent is being slowly pulled apart by tectonic forces. The resulting stresses thin the Earth’s crust and trigger volcanic activity, creating hot springs below Kivu that feed hot water, carbon dioxide, and methane into the lake’s bottom layers.

Day 9: Karongi - Ruhangeri

You follow the coastline of Lake Kivu all day long. This is a mountainous area and therefore often offers beautiful views. You will largely take the famous Congo-Nile route, while the support car will follow a different route. Ruhengeri is the place you are going. Sometimes the road is very bad. At the top of the lake you turn off and ride past the many volcanoes of the Volcanoes National Park of the same name. This produces spectacular images.

Day 10: Ruhengeri - Ruhija

You ride on a winding road between two lakes and then arrive at the border with Uganda. In Uganda you ride to the town of Kisoro. Depending on the time it takes to cross the border, you will make a detour around Lake Muhule and follow a path of lava rock into the mountains. Then you continue on a beautiful tarmac road that curves, bends, descends, and climbs along small villages, banana fields, and lush green vegetation. The last kilometres will be on a gravel road riding on the edge of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, home of an immense diversity of species but most famous for its mountain gorillas. There are about 459 gorillas living in the forest, which makes up almost half of all the mountain gorillas in the world.

Day 11: Ruhija  - gorilla tracking

You will spend the entire day visiting the gorillas. You will arrange the necessary permits in advance. Only eight people per day are allowed to visit the three gorilla families. You can stay with the family for a maximum of one hour. A family sleeps in a different place every night. In the early morning, so-called 'trackers' are sent to locate the family. The group of eight visitors, led by a guide and a few rangers, will then be guided through the dense forest to the family via GPS coordinates. How long you have to walk to get to the gorillas is therefore entirely dependent on where the family is. But this unique hour with the gorillas is worth every walk. Alternatively, you can stay relaxing at the nice hotel, walk around the forest village where you stay, or do a guided nature tour.

Day 12: Ruhija - Dave the Cave 

Today you ride into the real highlands. The unpaved roads take you across the mountain range to the hilly landscape along Lake Edward. Here begins the Queen Elisabeth National Park. A long, unpaved road runs through this park. You follow this route and almost certainly see wildlife on the way. Uganda is still the only country in Africa where you can ride through some nature parks with a motorbike.You stay at one of the many crater lakes at a local family-run ecolodge and campsite. The owner can share stories about the community and several initiatives they work on to empower the people.

Day 13: Dave the Cave - Lake Nkuruba

In the morning there is an option to go chimpanzee trekking. You are close to a population of chimpanzees not often visited by tourists. From a greater distance, you can already hear the huge population of chimpanzees who are foraging high in the trees. When you get closer, they will first show you that they are the rulers of the forest by making a lot of noise and shouting. Alternatively, you can take a crater walk. You are close to the Kazinga channel, which divides Lake Edward with Lake George. You can organize a 2-hour boat ride along the shores of Queen Elizabeth Park to see fishermen, many types of birds, crocodiles, hypos, and land animals – such as buffalos, waterbucks, often elephants, and sometimes even a lion. You will continue your way to pass the equator. On the west side of the road is the Ruwenzori mountain range, with the 4,843 meters high Mount Baker. On the east side is the Kibale Forest National Park. You spend the night here in a jungle lodge. Watch out for all the monkeys surrounding your dinner table!

Day 14: Lake Nkuruba - Mubende

Today you have an exciting riding day through the rural countryside of central Uganda. You start the morning riding along Kibale National Park, passing several crater lakes. With good weather you can see the Ruwenzori Mountains. The roads are surrounded by tea plantations and banana field. Groups of women in colourful clothes walk through the fields with big loads on their heads, whilst men are pushing their bikes with harvest loads up the mountains. You stay overnight in Mubende, a busy trading town on the intersection of the Kampaka-Rwanda main road.

Day 15: Mubende - Lake Mburo

Today you continue your countryside exploration. You mix gravel roads with tarmac, you pass through villages and farmland; crops vary from tea and bananas, to coffee, beans, cassava, sugarcane, and many more fields as you curve your way to Lake Mburo. Lake Mburo is a small national park surrounding the lake of the same name. This is the only park where you can officially enter with your motorbikes as there are no wild cats and elephants. Here you will spot small groups of zebras, buffalos, and giraffes.

Day 16: Lake Mburo - Lake Bunyonyi

You start the day with a nice off-road route towards Mbarara. After a short tarmac road, you will continue on a long gravel stretch towards the Tanzania border. After lunch, you take the highway towards Kabale. You will climb to above 2,000 meters! Next, it is a short off-road ride to your accommodation where you can enjoy a cold drink overlooking the lake.

Day 17:  Lake Bunyonyi - Stay

You start the morning with an opportunity to either sleep in, take a canoe ride, or enjoy a village walk. You can visit one of the islands or visit the Batwa community, a pigmy tribe. There is also an option for a half-day motor tour.

Day 18: Lake Bunyonyi - Nyagatare

Today you are going back to Rwanda. After the border, you quickly leave the highway and ride into the tea plantations region. This is an adventurous route that brings you to Nyagatare, a small provincial town.

Day 19: Nyagatare - Akagera National Park

You head your way to the south where you ride through warm and low-lying plains. You can enjoy empty stretches of new highways with digital speed cameras checking your speed. You will still definitely enjoy some gravel roads along the Akagera National Park, a long stretch of protected area from north to south that borders Tanzania. The park includes savannah, woodland, and swamp habitats and a dozen of lakes. After practically eliminating poaching in just five years, lions and black rhinos were reintroduced between 2015 and 2018, and white rhinos were introduced in 2021 in a conservation move to help protect the species.

Day 20: Akagera National Park

Today there is the option to do a game ride to explore the richness of the national park, both in nature and in wildlife. There is also an option to do a half-day trip in the area on the motorbike. You can also opt to just relax with a book.

Day 21: Akagera - Kigali

Today you head back to Kigali. You will return to the hotel where you started. You will enjoy a well-deserved cold drink at the hotel swimming pool.

Day 22: Kigali - Departure

Today you can explore the city. For example, you could visit the genocide museum or the famous Rwanda hotel. Departure to the airport is often in the late afternoon or evening.

Motorbikes

During this trip, you ride on a Haojin 200cc or equivalent motorbike.

Difficulty and offroad

During this trip, you do not ride at significant heights. The bad slippery roads (particularly after rain) can make travel heavy, however this will probably only last a few days. About 65% of the route is on asphalt roads, which are often of remarkably good quality. Most gravel roads are also in decent conditions. For a small part of the trip, you ride on more challenging unpaved roads. The quality of these roads is very different.

Clothing

Mandatory items include a helmet, motorcycle jacket with protection, gloves, a good strong pair of (motorcycle) trousers with protection or separate knee armour, and sturdy high (mountain) boots. Furthermore, they recommend bringing a good pair of sunglasses, lip balm and sunscreen as well as a helmet with a visor or a good pair of glasses that also protects against the dust of unpaved roads. At evenings and at high heights – you travel at altitudes of 1500-2500 meter – it can be chilly.

Skill level(s)

Beginner:

  • can ride for 2-3 hours
  • minimal riding experience
  • assistance required
  • comfortable with curves and leans
  • basic experience with unsurfaced roads
  • short distance ascents and descents

Intermediate:

  • can ride for 3-4 hours
  • average riding experience
  • little assistance required
  • comfortable with extreme curves and leans
  • average experience with unsurfaced roads
  • steep ascents and descents

Advanced:

  • can ride for 5-6 hours
  • extensive riding experience
  • assistance on demand (if required)
  • experienced with riding a variety of motorcycles
  • comfortable with any terrain and weather conditions

Instructors

Remco Van Stappershoesf

Location

East Africa has two rainy seasons. In spring from March to May and from October to November in autumn. Since this trip is around the equator the average temperature throughout the year is 30 degrees.

You start the trip in the capital of Rwanda and ride directly to the neighbouring country of Burundi. Here you ride beautiful routes and visit the capital Bujumbura located on the gigantic Lake Tanganyika. In Rwanda you ride the Congo Nile trail along Lake Kivu, visit the volcano area, and ride a beautiful off-road route into Uganda’s impenetrable forest. In Uganda, you slalom along crater lakes and through national parks and before looping back into Rwanda. You end with a game ride at the Rwanda plains.

An intensive, diverse, and fulfilling trip through three special African countries.

Food

The following meals are included:

  • Breakfast

The following dietary requirement(s) are served and/or catered for:

  • Regular (typically includes meat and fish)
If you have special dietary requirements it's a good idea to communicate it to the organiser when making a reservation

What's included

  • All airport transfers
  • 21 nights accommodation, including most breakfasts
  • Motorcycle hire
  • Support vehicle with local driver
  • Fuel for the support vehicle
  • Accompanying mechanic in support vehicle
  • English tour guide on motorcycle
  • Liability insurance for the motorcycle

What's not included

  • International flights
  • Airport taxes and fuel surcharges
  • Optional Gorilla Tracking Permit
  • Optional Chimpanzee Tracking Permit
  • All other meals and drinks
  • Personal expenses
  • Fuel for motorcycle
  • Travel and cancellation insurance
  • Cost of visa

How to get there

Recommended Airports

Airport: Entebbe International Airport Airport transfer included: Entebbe International Airport No additional charges. You can request this in the next step.

Cancellation Policy

  • A reservation requires a deposit of 12.1% of the total price.
  • The deposit is non-refundable, if the booking is cancelled.
  • The rest of the payment should be paid 30 days before arrival.
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