Mt Sabinyo Hiking

Mount Sabyinyo is an extinct volcano in eastern Africa in the Virunga Mountains. Mount Sabyinyo is the oldest volcano of the range.

It is north-east of Lake Kivu, one of the African Great Lakes, and west of Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda. The summit of the mountain, at 3,669 metres (12,037 ft), marks the intersection of the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda, and holds religious significance to local tribes. Established as national park in 1991 to secure a future for the endangered mountain gorilla, MGNP is home to a staggering diversity of life as well as the Batwa people – a tribe of pygmies that have long carved out an existence in this forest. Nevertheless, it is the three conical extinct volcanoes that steal the show by dominating one of central east Africa’s most dramatic skylines. In Kisoro town, a mere 14km from the park headquarters, we signed up for the Mount Sabyinyo hike. Early the next morning we were screaming through sleepy Kisoro on our pre-arranged motorcycle taxi, who much to our surprise had actually turned up! It was a treacherous journey however. It had rained heavily during the night and the roads had disintegrated into a muddy mess not worthy of their place on the map. An hour of slipping, sliding, pushing, cursing and generally ill-advised risks saw us get to the park in one piece.