The beautiful Lake Muhanzi is located about 40km east from Rwanda’s capital city Kigali, and had a beautiful winding shoreline worth exploring on your Safari in Rwanda especially over the weekends. The area neighboring the lake has a charm relaxed setting making it the perfect place to go and escape the busy and noisy life in the city.
Lake Muhazi is generally shallow though a very long lake, which extends through flooded valley over a 40km to reach its eastern lake shore, that is a short distance from the renowned Akagera National Park. Actually the road leading to Nyagatare passes close to the eastern shore of this lake, and offers a nice stopover for anyone on a journey using this road. You may choose to even have a lunch stopover, or simply enjoy the cools breeze on the eastern shore of Lake Muhazi before continuing with your journey.
The lake shore is lined with several traditional villages plus local bars that play vibrant music, so stopping by any of these will offer you an opportunity to see how the local people in that area also enjoy their leisure time. You may also opt to spend some time observing the various waters on the shores or choose to do some fishing there.
Gahini Anglican Cathedral
Opposite the eastern shore on the hilltop is Gahini town a nice place to enjoy the Rwandan lifestyle. In case you visit this town on Sunday, you will be able to see the locals attending prayers at the momentous Gahini Anglican Cathedral. Majority of the people living in this town and the neighboring villages are majorly farmers of fishermen, son in case you see herds of long horned Inyambo cows don’t be surprised. A trip to Lake Muhazi is not considered complete unless you take a boat trip on the lake either to watch birds or do some fishing.
For those of you, who love wildlife, watch out the Spotted-necked otter plus several birds including the Swamp flycatcher, African fish eagle, pied kingfisher and Malachite kingfisher among others.
There are several streams meandering from Lake Muhazi which feed into the wide expanse covered mainly by agricultural villages. In case you are driving in a 4WD safari vehicle, you can easily traverse the dirty dumpy road (which is less traveled) and see the beautifully terraced farmlands on the hillsides that drop down to the edge of the water. Along this drive you enjoy beautiful views of the lake.
There are 2 large towns close to this lake and these are: Gahini town and Rwesero town which have a number of guesthouses from which you can organize several water activities including Fishing, boat riding trips as well as bird watching.
For those of you interested in swimming you may decide to
do so in the shallow waters along the shore line however do so which caution.
The local restaurants in this area prepare a variety of local delicious cuisines that will offer you the true taste of Rwanda’s varied food basket, various cold drinks, . We recommend a visit for enthusiasts of history plus Religion to the old Gahini Anglican Cathedral build using brick; it believed to have been constructed in 1975 and up to date it still stand high above other rooftops in Gahini. Every year, thousands and thousands of pilgrims including the local parishioners come to this cathedral.
