Travel Guide Mgahinga National Park

With less than 34 km², Mgahinga Park is the smallest park in the country, but also one of the most grandiose with the Muhavura (4,127 m), Gahinga (3,474 m) and Sabinyo (3,669 m) mountains in the background. These volcanoes, now dormant, whose names mean respectively "the guide", "the little pile of stones" and "the teeth of the old man" are three of the Virunga volcanoes that are spread between Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Mgahinga Park adjoins the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and the Virunga National Park in the DRC, with which it forms the Virunga Conservation Area. It is home to the iconic mountain gorilla, which lives at medium altitude in the bamboo forests, as well as many other mammals (seventy-six species) including the endemic golden monkeys, colobus monkeys, buffalo, jackals, wild pigs, antelopes, and even elephants and leopards. There are also some 180 species of birds, some of which are endemic to the Rift Valley, such as the Rwenzori touraco, the black-faced apalis, the stripe-bellied titmouse and the omnicolored royal souimanga. The Twa (Pygmy) communities, about two thousand people, who have inhabited the forest for centuries, were driven out of the boundaries of Mgahinga National Park when it was established in 1991.