This week’s dream: Rwanda’s magical wilderness reborn

As a tourist destination, Rwanda is best known for its mountain gorillas. But this tiny country in the “green heart” of Africa has much more to offer visitors, says Chris Haslam in The Sunday Times – including “volcanoes like Kenya, rainforests like Gabon, a lake shore like Malawi and savannah like Tanzania”. Lions and rhinos have only recently been reintroduced, and so it is not a place for safari goers hoping to “see the big five before breakfast”. But getting between Rwanda’s natural wonders is easy, thanks to excellent new roads; and there are flights direct from Gatwick.

Permits to see the gorillas in Volcanoes National Park cost from £777 and allow you just one hour with the animals. You face a tough hike through the jungle to find them, but minutes pass like seconds in their company and there are some great places to relax afterwards, including the “A-list” Bisate Lodge. Far to the south lies the Nyungwe Forest National Park, which is home to roughly 1,000 chimps. Keeping up with a troop is tough – they crash through the forest canopy “like teenage house guests”, screeching “like a Marbella hen night” – but the attempt will leave you “grinning like a monkey”.

The savannah, swamps and mountains of Akagera National Park have a “strange magic” missing from more established game reserves. Following the genocide of 1994, parts were turned into farmland by returning refugees, but they are now “wild and untrammelled” again. A safari here might spot leopard, elephant and even those recently arrived lions and rhinos. Afterwards, retire for some R&R beside Lake Kivu, a vast expanse of blue, warm, croc-free water, with simple but “cheerful” lodges and beachside grills “specialising, unexpectedly, in fish and chips”. Cazenove + Loyd (020-7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com) has a seven-night trip from £7,290 per person, including gorilla, chimp and monkey tracking permits, plus some activities, but excluding flights.