Chimpanzee trekking in Nyungwe National Park

You leave the lodge around 05:00 to meet trackers who located the group the previous evening. The forest is dark, wet and steep, and the first indication is usually sound — a distant burst of calling that sends the guides moving quickly off the path. Then it becomes a chase, at pace, through undergrowth.

When you find them, they may be sixty feet up and moving. The hour you are permitted is often broken into glimpses rather than a sustained sitting. That is what wild chimpanzee tracking is, and it is thrilling on its own terms.

The Cyamudongo forest fragment, an hour or so from the main park, holds a smaller, better-habituated community and tends to produce more reliable sightings on more manageable ground. The larger Uwinka and Gisakura sectors hold a bigger community across much more difficult terrain.

We generally send guests to Cyamudongo unless they specifically want the harder, wilder option — and we stay honest that neither guarantees anything.

Nyungwe's Angolan colobus troops number in the hundreds — supertroops of 300 or more animals moving through the canopy together. They are far easier to reach, the viewing is sustained rather than fleeting, and photographically it is the better morning.

If you have one day in Nyungwe and want certainty, track colobus in the morning and walk the canopy walkway afterwards. If you have two, do chimpanzees on the first day and colobus on the second.

Nyungwe is four to five hours from Kigali and about three from Lake Kivu, so it sits naturally on a longer loop that also takes in the Virungas and Akagera. Two or three nights is right, at One&Only Nyungwe House or one of the Top View lodges.

Including Nyungwe National Park and Akagera National Park in the same itinerary as gorilla trekking also qualifies your gorilla permits for Rwanda's discounted USD $1,050 rate.