Musanze Caves Hike – Price and Guidelines for Visiting

Musanze Cave is named after the district where it is located, the Musanze District. It was developed for tourism in 2013 by the Rwanda Development Board’s (RDB) Tourism and Conservation Department. There are trails, stone staircases, and railings, but no electric light. Visitors are equipped with helmets, raincoats, and hand lamps.

Musanze Cave is a rather young lava cave in the Albertine Rift Valley. The volcanism started here with the Cretaceous 65 Million years ago and is still going on. The cave was formed by a lava flow from the Bisoke and Sabyinyo volcanoes. It has huge, 10m high, entrance portals and a length of two kilometers. Multiple roof collapses, which are common for lava caves, make a total of 31 entrances.

However, this is not the average lava tube, it is a much rarer type of cave called blister cave. Volcanic gas bubbles or blisters were collecting in solidifying lava and so the blisters solidified and became caves. The cave is a series of huge oval chambers, many of them connected, but not all of them. A result is actually a number of caves which altogether are called Musanze Caves.