Memories of a Trip to Akagera National Park

Akagera is the park I’ve visited the most, but it’s also the one closest to my heart. Not because it’s the most dramatic, or the most advertised, or because it delivers some perfectly packaged version of the wild—but because it has a way of reminding me, every single time, how much of what I obsess over simply doesn’t matter.

A few days out there has a quiet way of shrinking your problems down to their proper size. It reminds you that sometimes all a person really needs is distance—from routines, from noise, from the small anxieties we dress up as emergencies.

There’s something deeply humbling about seeing animals in their natural habitat. A safari drive strips life down to its essentials. No commentary, no soundtrack, no moral lesson spelled out in bold letters. Just movement, survival, and patience.

We saw lions stretched out under the sun like they owned the place—which, of course, they do. White rhinos moving with a weight that feels ancient. Giraffes walking with that calm, deliberate grace, as if they have nowhere else to be. The heat was unforgiving this time of year, pressing down on everything, but even that felt honest. It’s part of the contract. The land doesn’t adjust itself for comfort.

What I appreciate most is the space Akagera gives you to pause. To stop the vehicle. To sit with the stillness. Sometimes with a cigarette in hand, sometimes without—it doesn’t really matter. The ritual isn’t the point. Reflection is.

Out there, reflection feels less like an exercise and more like a natural response. Your thoughts slow down. They fall into line. You start noticing how loud your inner world usually is, and how unnecessary most of that noise turns out to be.

Being in the wild has a way of pulling you back to simplicity. It makes you think about all the small things you once let weigh you down—emails, deadlines, conversations that lingered longer than they deserved to.

Out there, those things lose their grip. You’re reminded that life, at its core, is remarkably straightforward. Breathe. Observe. Respect the space you’re in.

Akagera doesn’t demand anything from you. It doesn’t try to impress. It just exists, steadily, unapologetically. And somehow, in doing so, it gives you exactly what you didn’t realize you were missing.