Stanzania - Ruaha Safari

[From Saturday, June 30]

Friday Christine and I did a safari in Ruaha National Park, just outside of the town Iringa in central Tanzania. Ruaha is a great park to visit because they have a large variety of animals to see and it is much less touristy and crowded (and cheaper) than Serengeti and Ngorongoro since it is farther from the big cities up north. It is also the second largest game park in Tanzania and has the large Ruaha River running through it which made for some amazing scenery. We used a private guide to drive us around, which was really awesome because we got to ride in a classic Land Rover car with a lifted roof to take pictures.

We saw many of the typical safari animals right away - impalas / antelopes, zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, crocs, and even two lions who were just by themselves outside of the pack. Soon afterward, we saw a huge pride of at least 15 lions together under a tree, resting after what appeared to be a recent successful hunt. Next to them was a mostly-devoured buffalo carcass that foxes and vultures were starting to call dibs on. It was pretty amazing to see, and a little scary too, as we drove up to within 10 feet or so of where the lions were laying. Luckily we could see they were no longer hungry... and neither were we after getting a good whiff of the buffalo.

Other animals inside the park that we saw included the waterbuck, which looks similar to a deer but with white stripes across its back and huge ears, babboons, a smaller breed of monkey called a tumbili, a couple hyeenas, warthogs, though not nearly Pumba-sized, and many colorful birds.

We stayed at the government bandas (small huts) inside the park as a cheaper and easier alternative to the many resorts and camps both inside and outside. They were nice enough, though it did get very cold at night since they weren't really insulated. It was cool staying there because the animals would literally walk right up to where people stay throughout the day and even more of them come around at night. We woke up to the sounds of elephants and hippos in the near distance.

We were taking our stuffed white-ish panda around with us and taking pictures of him with the other animals, and then we stopped near another car of people and saw that they were doing the same thing with a stuffed elephant of their own. Good to know we weren't the only crazy people in the park.

The only major animals we missed out on seeing were leopards and cheetahs, which are both apparently very rare in Ruaha and usually can't be found. But we still got to see much more than I did on my first safari in Mikumi last year during our training. My camera died towards the end of the day, so you'll have to check out Christine's pictures when she gets back as well.

After getting back to Iringa this morning, we did some shopping and exploring around a more typical and less overwhelming Tanzanian town. There are many Maasai natives that live not very far from here, and a large Maasai market where they sell their hand-made crafts, wood carvings and paintings. Tomorrow we are getting on an early bus to Njombe, finally my neck of the woods. We will spend the night at the Chani Hotel, my favorite guest house in all of Tanzania, and then make the (now) short, 2-hour trip to my school on Monday. I can't wait for Christine to get to meet my students, and to celebrate her first Tanzanian birthday!