Only 10 years ago, Rwanda was Africa’s premier gorilla-tracking destination, a status it is set to reclaim as it retreats from the frontpage news to bask in the more glamorous surrounds of the glossy travel supplements. And tracking the magnificent mountain gorilla through the lush slopes of the Virungas remains without question the most thrilling and moving wildlife experience to be had on the world’s wildest continent.

Yet there is so much more to Rwanda than gorillas. Take Akagera National Park, for instance, a mesmerizing tract of untrammeled African wilderness, where elephants still have the right of way, and vast numbers of hippo and crocodile languish along tree-lined lakes. Or Nyungwe Natural Forest, the largest extant tract of montane forest in East or Central Africa, home to chimpanzees, troops of 400-plus colobus monkeys, and hundreds of rare forest birds. Then there is Lake Kivu, an ocean-like freshwater expanse hemmed in by the dramatic mountains of the Rift Valley, the dramatic volcanic cones of Virungas, the secret delights of the myriad frost-fringed waterfalls. Best-known for its wealth of primates, Rwanda is also one of Africa’s top birding countries, where an incredible 670 different species have been recorded within an area intermediate to that of Wales and Belgium. For amateur botanists, the gorgeous wildflowers of the forest and mountains are capped by more than 100 orchid species in Nyungwe alone, as well as the other-worldly giant lobelia, a floral refugee from a science-fiction film set.  Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and heavily cultivated, with even the steepest hill outside of conservation areas being tightly terraced from base to peak. The largest body of water is Lake Kivu in the Albertine Rift. Numerous lakes are dotted around the country, notably Burera, Ruhondo, Muhazi and Mugasera follow the contours of the steep mountains which enclose them.