A safari at Ruaha (July 30 - Aug. 1, 2006)

Alas! The Fellowship of the Ring was never to be. Only Rhiannon, Sevvie, Georg, Wayne, and Moi were the ones who got to shoot some big game, albeit with cameras. Ruaha National Park, Tanzania's second largest, turned out to be quite a good choice after all and our budget safari was more than successful. Ruaha gets one tenth of the folks that throng Serengeti, but has all the Big Game, including some 10,000 elephants! We arranged the safari with the MR Hotel's travel agent, and our driver Gabriel doubled up as an excellent guide as well. He was so excited that we had to actually restrain him from going off the road a few times, perhaps that's what wazungus before us had wanted him to do. We bought supplies at Iringa and it ended up to be damn cheap ~$5 for 6 meals! We made pasta, some kind of curry, as it were, but it was quite humbling to eat out of plastic bags. We checked out Mdonya, Mwagusi river road, Jongomero camp trails and did a walking safari down the stream by Msembe HQ. We got all of the BIG FIVE save Rhinos. And more importantly, we made it back with all our limbs intact, despite the walking safari. Some of us did however get bit by a few Tsetse flies as we were cruising through the Miombo woodland, but I believe the infection rates must be really low, I hope or else I am just narcoleptic.

I can't wax eloquent but the skies defy description. And the remoteness was punctuated by the lack of electricity and signs of human development, except for the school in the middle of nowhere. Our banda was right by the water and so all the big game came to us. I will always remember (so will I think Sevvie) the charge of the hippo, the daily visits of the crazy bull elephant that blocked our way back to the bandas and the lions crossing the stream by night.

We visited a couple of luxury tented camps, to stretch with varying degrees of welcome. One place was run by an Italian couple, who were so kind that they offered us drinks and even gave a guided tour of the $200/person/day camp!! Whereas at the other outfit, we were promptly sent off at the gates by this rude (for want of a better word) South African. We learnt from him that their safaris had gone without spotting a single lion over days, whereas we were graced by its august presence on several occasion. Perhaps, it serves him right!




I couldn't get my lone acacia in the middle of the savanna, however cliched it may sound. This was my last-ditch effort as we were leaving the park.




An avenue of Baobabs


They don't look all that threatening, do they?


A troop of Yellow Baboons scattering away to the sound of motor.



Waterbuck


Yeah, but what if the elephants come to you (see below). A crazy bull elephant that pays daily visits to the banda at night, decided to come check us out in daylight, I reckon!


Is he in (-side the banda) or is he out?


The invincible walking safari crew complete with our armed Askari (sans Rhiannon!)



Euphorbiaceae


It is crazy to think that some of these majestic Baobabs could be some 1000 years old. Note the elephant damage on the trunk.


Pearl-spotted Owlet (Glaucidium perlatum), a diurnal hunter in riparian habitats.


Euphorbiaceae inflorescence


Euphorbiaceae


Nile Crocodile


Red-headed Rock Agama (Agama agama)? Ironically I spotted him on the floor of the forest office, not in the savannah proper.



Thanks to my keen eyes! We actually saw these cheetahs hunt imapalas but they didn't kill any, but were merely testing their prowess.



I finally got to see my first monotypic African family, Scopidae (Hammerkop: Scopus umbretta)



Lesser Kudu


A Dik-Dik



No, I didn't go nowhere near 'em. 'Tis another marvel of digiscoping...



A confusion of Helmeted Guineafowls (Numida Meleagris)


A rock hyrax sliding on what appears to be a rock! It is hard to see how these are the closest living relative to elephants. Also seen partly is a mongoose on the top of the rock.


Lilac-breasted Roller (Coracias caudata)


Equus quagga?


A pair of Saddle-billed Storks (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) roosting


African Wattled Plover (Vanellus senegallus)



Greater Kudu


Von der Decken's Hornbill (Tockus deckeni)


Red-billed Hornbill (Tockus erythrorhynchus)


Impalas




Baobabs with wart-hogs in the foreground


This crazy seemingly-innocuous hippo that charged just a metre from where I was washing my hands by the banda, as soon as we got to Ruaha. What was he thinking?