When we discovered the price to get the truck into Ruaha we were somewhat taken aback - particularly when we discovered that it is a "standard price" for ALL Tanzanian parks, no matter if they are major or minor. We went to a campsite close to the entrance (Chogela - only 15km away, but down a gravel road that has literally been torn up by local "safari operators" screaming up and down it with tourists in the back hanging on grimly) and decided to go into the park just for 24 hours, but only when we were ready to do so to maximise our time spent there. The next day Sue had a terrible back from the vibrations due to the corrugations, so we decided to wait another day until she felt better. This was a good idea as the campsite turned out to be a good birding spot - sue enjoyed a day "armchair birdwatching" and visited a local "income generating project" based on the campsite selling locally produced items - she came back with a Masai "Chiefs Staff" - maybe it's for me?!
The next day we took the terrible road back to the park gate, paid $270 for 24 hours and went in - initially the rad was just as bad - 15k/'hr a lot of the way to a "picnic spot" with shady bandas and seating where it's allowed to get out and walk around - the spot is by a bridge over the Ruaha River with a pod of hippos and several large crocs just at the bottom of a short slope. We stopped and had lunch, in the meantime a herd of elephants arrived on the other side of the bridge to quietly feed. There was a very good selection of birdlife around including a few endemic to Tanzania, one of which caught both our eyes - a Superb Starling - very blue on the back, very rufous on the chest with a flash of bright white setting it all off - they make European starlings look quite drab.. We continued further into the park on the bad road which slowly got better (maybe the tour operators feel that they can slow down once they've shown their customers a hippo or two?) - coming over a hill sue grabbed me by the arm and shouted "BIRD"! this usually means "stop" - but not usually quite so emphatically pronounced nor so violently. There were some black, red and white thrush-sized birds flying between bushes - we'd definitely not seen these before! After some detective work with her books, sue declared them to be White Headed Buffalo Weavers - so now we knew!
The map that we'd been given (err, no, paid quite a bit of money for - at the gate) was wrong - or at least according to the Tracks For Africa mapping we use on the GPS. We decided that we trusted T4A more than the map - particularly as when we'd asked the guy who'd taken all our money from us to confirm where the campsite was located, he'd hovered his finger over the map for some time before spotting the magic word "campsite"! As T4A is built from the GPS tracklogs of people who have been previously, we tend to trust it quite a bit....turned out we were right - it led us straight to the site, lucky we hadn't followed the map which would have taken us miles in the other direction....after all "This Is Tanzania" to quote Archie from Kisolanza! The campsite was, ummm, dreadful - a dustbowl on the banks of the riverbed (mainly dry). The remains of previous campers' fires were liberally spread about and bricks abandoned in piles giving the whole place a desolate feel (don't forget how much we were paying for this pleasure....). There was a group of tents with a large table and many chairs all set out ready for someone's dinner - it looked like a tour group as there were also a few people hanging about looking like cooks etc., so we parked the truck on the banks of the river at the other end of the site to ensure peace and quiet for the night. Once positioned we looked around - on the other side of the river there were a number of vultures sitting in a couple of trees, some evidence of eles having passed that way at some time, but not a lot else, so we decided to explore slightly upriver, to do this we passed by the guys waiting for their customers to return from their afternoon game drives - as normal here we all greeted each other "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? etc several times.... anyway we asked if they'd seen anything interesting, one asked "Like lions? Like that lion over there with a kill?"!!!!! Directly in front of where we'd parked, close to the vulture trees he pointed out a lioness sitting beside a killed kudu - we'd looked there and not seen her - we really do need to get better at spotting things (particularly as all the signs were there - vultures, no prey animals etc...). So we sat down and watched - all afternoon until it got too dark to see - elephants, hippos and giraffe came and went - she stayed close to the kill, guarding it from scavengers.
During the night we were woken by a hyena calling very close to the truck, we looked out of the bedroom window and could see it in the bright moonlight, it appeared to be waiting - maybe for reinforcements to take the prey from the lioness?
We woke in the morning to find 3 lionesses feeding on the kudu and keeping the many vultures at bay. We watched this for a couple of hours along with various other wildlife including a black-backed jackal and a smaller hyena. As we were getting ready to leave, the lions dragged the remains away from the kill site and up the far bank behind a tree, so we weren't going to miss any more by departing. We left the park the same way that we came in, stopping again at the picnic spot, it was a shame not to see more of the park, but it was too hot and far too expensive. We set off down the "never-ending road" back towards Iringa, trying to avoid the worst of the corrugations - Sue describes this road as "hell" - I'm sure we've seen a lot worse, but the combination of distance/corrugations/stones/heat weren't good.
The next day we took the terrible road back to the park gate, paid $270 for 24 hours and went in - initially the rad was just as bad - 15k/'hr a lot of the way to a "picnic spot" with shady bandas and seating where it's allowed to get out and walk around - the spot is by a bridge over the Ruaha River with a pod of hippos and several large crocs just at the bottom of a short slope. We stopped and had lunch, in the meantime a herd of elephants arrived on the other side of the bridge to quietly feed. There was a very good selection of birdlife around including a few endemic to Tanzania, one of which caught both our eyes - a Superb Starling - very blue on the back, very rufous on the chest with a flash of bright white setting it all off - they make European starlings look quite drab.. We continued further into the park on the bad road which slowly got better (maybe the tour operators feel that they can slow down once they've shown their customers a hippo or two?) - coming over a hill sue grabbed me by the arm and shouted "BIRD"! this usually means "stop" - but not usually quite so emphatically pronounced nor so violently. There were some black, red and white thrush-sized birds flying between bushes - we'd definitely not seen these before! After some detective work with her books, sue declared them to be White Headed Buffalo Weavers - so now we knew!
The map that we'd been given (err, no, paid quite a bit of money for - at the gate) was wrong - or at least according to the Tracks For Africa mapping we use on the GPS. We decided that we trusted T4A more than the map - particularly as when we'd asked the guy who'd taken all our money from us to confirm where the campsite was located, he'd hovered his finger over the map for some time before spotting the magic word "campsite"! As T4A is built from the GPS tracklogs of people who have been previously, we tend to trust it quite a bit....turned out we were right - it led us straight to the site, lucky we hadn't followed the map which would have taken us miles in the other direction....after all "This Is Tanzania" to quote Archie from Kisolanza! The campsite was, ummm, dreadful - a dustbowl on the banks of the riverbed (mainly dry). The remains of previous campers' fires were liberally spread about and bricks abandoned in piles giving the whole place a desolate feel (don't forget how much we were paying for this pleasure....). There was a group of tents with a large table and many chairs all set out ready for someone's dinner - it looked like a tour group as there were also a few people hanging about looking like cooks etc., so we parked the truck on the banks of the river at the other end of the site to ensure peace and quiet for the night. Once positioned we looked around - on the other side of the river there were a number of vultures sitting in a couple of trees, some evidence of eles having passed that way at some time, but not a lot else, so we decided to explore slightly upriver, to do this we passed by the guys waiting for their customers to return from their afternoon game drives - as normal here we all greeted each other "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, how are you? etc several times.... anyway we asked if they'd seen anything interesting, one asked "Like lions? Like that lion over there with a kill?"!!!!! Directly in front of where we'd parked, close to the vulture trees he pointed out a lioness sitting beside a killed kudu - we'd looked there and not seen her - we really do need to get better at spotting things (particularly as all the signs were there - vultures, no prey animals etc...). So we sat down and watched - all afternoon until it got too dark to see - elephants, hippos and giraffe came and went - she stayed close to the kill, guarding it from scavengers.
During the night we were woken by a hyena calling very close to the truck, we looked out of the bedroom window and could see it in the bright moonlight, it appeared to be waiting - maybe for reinforcements to take the prey from the lioness?
We woke in the morning to find 3 lionesses feeding on the kudu and keeping the many vultures at bay. We watched this for a couple of hours along with various other wildlife including a black-backed jackal and a smaller hyena. As we were getting ready to leave, the lions dragged the remains away from the kill site and up the far bank behind a tree, so we weren't going to miss any more by departing. We left the park the same way that we came in, stopping again at the picnic spot, it was a shame not to see more of the park, but it was too hot and far too expensive. We set off down the "never-ending road" back towards Iringa, trying to avoid the worst of the corrugations - Sue describes this road as "hell" - I'm sure we've seen a lot worse, but the combination of distance/corrugations/stones/heat weren't good.