A herd of zebras passed directly by our vehicle. (I got fantastic video.) A baby giraffe ambled over to its mother in its strange, lilting gait, moving both left legs, then both right ones. Miniature antelope eyed us warily but without fear. An enormous hippo emerged from the lake and opened its huge mouth, giving us a brief “hippo dance.”

Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda is not as impressive as some of the larger safari parks in Kenya and Uganda, but it is one of the many reasons to visit this beautiful and inspiring country.  Twelve years after the 1994 genocide that shocked the world, Rwanda is staging a determined comeback, coupling international help with a deliberately positive attitude. Many of the 8 million Rwandais, as they call themselves, have their eyes fixed firmly on a positive future for their country, roughly the size of Maryland.

The game park is perhaps two hours from the capital city of Kigali, where the airport is. Its 900,000 acres were once part of a much larger preserve that was sacrificed to repatriate the diaspora. Tourists and visitors can stay in the Akagera Game Lodge, a pleasant and reasonably priced hotel with fabulous views of Lake Ihema, home to some of the park’s 10,000 hippos. To tour the park, you need to rent both a vehicle and a driver, and the $30 entrance fee to the park includes a guide. You can go out anywhere from 1 to 6 hours, and it is well worth it.

Even in this idyllic setting, however, there are daily reminders of the genocide, whose scorching touch burned virtually everyone. The reasons for the slaughter go back to colonial days, and some resentment still smolders. One of the country’s other important sites for the visitor is the genocide memorial in Kigali, where a trip is wrenching but tinged with the view that permeates the country: Que le genocide ne se repete jamais — Never again.

The contents of the small, modern building constructed in 2000 are shocking in themselves, the more so because they relate only to those killed in Kigali. The tourist walks among mass graves covered in stone, beneath which lie 257,000 bodies.They are surrounded by gardens for meditation, where a rocky waterfall represents the gradual division of the people; a rose garden reflects the innocence of the victims, and a healing stone reflects the hope for a united society.

The emphasis here is also on education, especially for children. The first section was a history of the white man’s fascination with ethnic classification, and the subsequent documentation that lies at the root of the ethnic hatred. This area also traced the development of the conflict, as power shifted between groups and each blamed, and felt oppressed by, the other.

Next there were gut-wrenching views of the event itself, which only lasted three months, but which killed 1 million people and which will be remembered for generations. There were also exhibits of other mass killings.

At the end of the exhibit is a circular group of sculptures, gracefully showing the cycle: The original unity; the division; the killing; and the resultant wounds, both mental and physical. As I sat, shocked and saddened, looking at this display, a young woman began to weep, quietly and heart-breakingly.

On the more positive side, Kigali is a great place to eat. Westerners need to be scrupulously careful about avoiding the water, anything that might have water in it (such as watermelon), and uncooked fruits and vegetables. The rule, “bake it, boil it or peel it yourself” worked wonderfully for me.

Given this caveat, Rwandan food is available at a variety of informal buffets, which I as a vegetarian greatly appreciated. Cooked cassava, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and beans are plentiful at Karibu, but visitors must heap their plates, because they are only allowed through the buffet line once. Unfortunately, the main Rwandan vegetable seemed to be chips (French fries), which were ubiquitous.

The indigenous Rwandan meat is goat, and I was told by those who tried it that it was generally tough. A great delicacy was fish, in particular, fish brochettes, which were frequently offered and invariably delicious. The most memorable of these was consumed the day I left, at La Galette, in informal outdoor eatery-cum-grocery, where the hour-and-15-minute wait had us eating hurriedly and running for the airport. But the brochettes were outstanding.

You can also have fabulous spaghetti or ravioli at the Cactus Club. But perhaps the finest dining of the trip was at Indian Khazana, where we devoured exquisite curried fish, lentils, and pureed spinach served on rice or a tasty garlic nan.

Each of the three major hotels in Kigali has its own unique character. I stayed at the Hotel des Mille Collines, which is the site of events that inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”  Despite its historic significance, this is a place in need of a facelift. The rooms are small and many look over a noisy street; the elevator groans alarmingly, and the gym is woefully inadequate. However, the setting is lovely, the atmosphere quiet and charming, and you are right downtown, within walking distance of shops and restaurants.

More expensive and elegant is the Intercontinental Hotel , where President Bill Clinton stays when he visits the projects his foundation has sponsored in the country. It is elegant and spacious, with two eateries and two pools. Outside the city is the Novotel , a new and touristy place teeming with children and gift shops.

Rwanda is just beginning to renew its tourist trade, and tourist traps are few and far between.  French is more ubiquitous than English (the Rwandais learn it in school, but speak Kinyarwandan to each other). But the president, Paul Kagame, has succeeded in stabilizing the country politically and socially (he is so progressive, he has banned certain types of trash and levies huge fines for driving without a seat belt).

But perhaps the most important reason for going to Rwanda is the people themselves. They are friendly, positive about Americans and eager to practice English. There is grinding poverty and some begging and hawking, but these people are not aggressive and are fairly easily and discouraged. It is a country with a future, and it deserves a chance.

Next month: The mountain gorillas of Rwanda!

Happy traveling!

Captions: 1. Photography by Thomas Simonet.