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A self drive report

December 11th – 16th, 2021

Kisolanza was a campsite that was easy to be in, but we left anyway, knowing that the next few nights would be much more wild and interesting, but also without the well thought out amenities that we’d had the last two nights.

A small side story. We had a wonderful chat with Nikki, the owner of Kisolanza. Conversation varied widely, and after learning we were from America, she lamented that though she so loved traveling in the US, she wasn’t able to return. “Why is that?” We asked. She responded that it was because of 9/11. It turns out that the 9/11 bombers and/or their associates were either from, or had spent some time in Iringa, the regional hub just north of here. This meant that it was very difficult, or impossible in her words, to get a tourist visa if you were from the area. She went on to say that right after 9/11, when nobody really knew what was going on, her whole campsite and all the chalets were booked up by mysterious Americans. They later revealed themselves to be FBI and CIA. They spent about month living there while conducting investigations in the area. 

That tale aside, we had an unhurried morning of packing up, topping off water and settling our tab. Then we hit the road. Note, this is the location of the borehole in the not so famous “Jenny Pumps Water” video, though sadly that borehole has been decommissioned.

The Tan-Zam highway was pleasantly quiet at our eight o’clock start, certainly the most pleasant highway driving in Tanzania to date. The road continued to have wide shoulders and climbing lanes, making things all very civilized. Except of course the busses, they were still apparently trying to kill everyone with their reckless driving, but at least they stayed true to form.

I forgot to mention in my last post that on the way past Mafinga, the town just before Kisolanza, Jenny was driving and was waved to the shoulder by the police. She pulled onto the shoulder, and a policeman came over, beaming a big smile at us and announcing, “You have been speeding!” 

She had been so carefully trying not to speed, but with going in and out of 50 kph zones all the time, some of the signs missing, it is easy to lose track. She apologized, and he was all very friendly. He said that he had a photo of us doing 67 kph in a 50 zone, and that the fine was 30,000 TSH. But because he was such a nice guy, he could let us off for less money but with no receipt. 

Jenny said, “No, that’s okay, we’ll pay the fine and get the receipt.” He was incredulous. Thinking we weren’t getting that it would cost us more to pay the proper fine, he explained it again. We understood and held our ground, that we would pay the proper fine with the receipt. He curtly said, “Okay, you can go, no fine.” And off we went.

We’re convinced this was a scam. If he did actually have a photo from the radar gun, which they frequently do have, I don’t think he would have let us off.

Our steady progress munched through the kilometers, and in short order we arrived at Iringa. Iringa is one of Tanzania’s larger towns (a city perhaps?), bustling but also fairly organized. We made a quick dip into town to get a few supplies and then were off towards Ruaha. 

We wound our way through the hilly outskirts of the city and onto the R7. This started as good condition tarmac, but in not too long switched to gravel. A few villages pass by, but there is quite a bit of open land and empty road, and it feels like we are heading deeper into the wild, which I suppose we were. 

Jenny and I have been discussing how we feel more relaxed as we get further out in the bush and into the parks, like we can finally exhale. Some travelers may savor the hectic energy of African cities or be unperturbed by the noisy crowds at roadside bus stops and markets, but we find it draining. Not that it isn’t fascinating and an engaging part of being here, and some of the people we interact with are really interesting, intelligent and courteous people. Still the whole exercise saps my energy. 

At home I wouldn’t describe myself as an outdoor addict. In the US you won’t find Jenny and me backpacking or scaling peaks or even camping more than a few times a year. But in Africa we can’t seem to get enough. Part of this is because we are fascinated by the biodiversity, the ecosystems, the animals, and the terrain of these wilderness areas. However we’re also noticing that particularly up here in the hustle and bustle of East Africa, the parks are also where we can take a break from the intensity of the highways and the cities. We’re still reflecting on understanding this, but just a thought.

As the villages and farms fade away, the road gets progressively more corrugated. Parts of it rival the famed horror of the Serengeti-Ngorongoro Road, which I despise, only this is narrower. There are smooth ridges outside the corrugations, but just outside of that is soft sand, so it takes focused driving to stay in the sweet spot. We swapped drivers just before it got really tricky. Jenny was getting the worst of it, but of course she kept us on track.

Eventually the road forks, but both branches reach the park. Taking the right fork, as suggested by everyone, took us into the Wilderness Management Area (WMA), I assume similar in function to the GMAs in countries further south. We started seeing more birdlife, hornbills in particular, and not long after a lot of elephant tracks crossing the road.

Baobabs were dotted around among otherwise fairly dry scrub forest, and game trails crisscrossed the road, heightening our anticipation. After what seemed like a very long approach road, we arrived at the gate.

Into the Park

Ruaha’s entrance is very organized, a pleasant difference compared to Katavi. There are toilets, a small shop that sells mostly snacks and soda, and a large park office to check people in and out of the parks. There are also quite a few nice informational signs around about the Ruaha ecosystem, seasons, wildlife, etc.

The rangers at the entrance were friendly and happily checked us into the park. We paid our fees to stay for three nights, but this time, to spare our wallets a bit, we stuck with the public campsites. After getting our permit the ranger asked, “Do you like wild dogs?” Does anyone say no to that question? 

We responded that we did, and he gave us detailed directions to where a large pack was spotted about an hour ago. We asked for a map, and but they didn’t have any for sale. He pulled out a battered old copy of a tourist map and encouraged me to take a photo with my phone. This worked well, and we referenced it frequently during our stay, though it didn’t differ much from the Tracks4Africa maps on our GPS. 

This sort of thing I always find odd. With the sky high fees charged by TANAPA to be in the park, how is it possible that they don’t have any maps to offer, even at an additional charge? Certainly it’s not worth getting worked up over, just one of many tiny mysteries of traveling here.

Off we went, on the hunt for wild dogs. For some reason that I’ve forgotten, the name wild dog comes with some sort of negative connotation, so they are sometimes referred to as painted dogs or painted wolves.

In not too long we came to the large bridge that crosses the Ruaha river. The river was looking pretty modest right now, with some stagnant pools, not flowing. Unfortunately this has become a seasonal occurrence, the river running dry. Apparently there is a lot of farmland upriver, and the water gets syphoned off for irrigation schemes. In the dry season there is no water left, and the river runs dry in the park, a disaster for the wildlife here. This is another example of the complexitiesof conservation.

There is a nice picnic site here with interpretive panels, shade and picnic tables, and we got out for a quick snack. Wild dogs are usually sedentary midday, so we hoped they would not move while we had a quick lunch. Pushing on after that, the ranger’s instructions were perfect, and we came across a small bridge and stand of baobab and found 21 wild dogs lazing around in the shade. How lucky can you get, wild dogs in Ruaha National Park an hour from the gate? 

The pack consisted of some adolescents and adults that had some particularly nice coloring. We sat with them for a while, but other than occasional resettling in new shade there wasn’t much action, so we resolved to go check out our campsite and return later in the afternoon when they might be more active. 

Public Campsite No. 1 came recommended, so we headed for that. Our Swiss friend we’d met at Kisolanza was set up here. We said hello and shared the news of the wild dogs. He was quite excited and headed off in a hurry to go see them.

Campsite No. 1 is on the banks of the now mostly empty Ruaha river, set about one kilometer east of the large ranger camp. There are some dubious ablutions and several large fire rings. 

A couple of those rings were behind bushes and adjacent to the ablutions, which seemed to us an odd spot for a campsite on the river bank, but later it became clear those were there to shelter from the frequent easterly winds. Our Swiss friend had rightly set up in the best spot with a panoramic view of the riverbed. Not far from him was a huge cement fire ring, complete with little cement stools around it, under a large tree. This would have been an ideal site, but it was totally occupied by the large fire ring. We didn’t want to crowd our neighbor, so we found a spot with a view a bit further down the river bank.

There were a few grazers, impala and waterbuck in the riverbed, but otherwise all was pretty quiet game wise. That evening we made a short exploratory loop to the north, not seeing much, and then made our way back to the wild dogs.

The dogs had consolidated, and the adolescents were getting restless. A scout vehicle for a film crew was there, and he looked happy, taking pictures with his phone. We always like it when the guides and scouts are taking photos. It means you are at a good sighting.

After some time a lodge vehicle came, let their guests snap a few photos, and a few moments later they were off. Amusingly the adolescent dogs chased after the vehicle, just like a domestic dog might chase a car at home. How fascinating that this behavior is instinctual; these dogs certainly didn’t learn that behavior. 

I understand why the lodge vehicles often only stop for a few minutes and move on. They are on a schedule and also trying to tick off as many species for their clients as they can. But we find that if you are on a good animal sighting, you should stay there. It vastly increases your chances of seeing interesting animal behavior. So we patiently wait. 

This time we were rewarded with getting to see a “pep rally,” which is when wild dogs start cavorting and yipping after an afternoon of rest, getting pumped up before going on a hunt. They joined their pack mates and began running in circles, more or less, with very high pitched short yips. It didn’t last long but was wonderful to see. Then they loped down to the river, drank from the pools and vanished into the bush. What a nice start to our time here.

That night at camp we sat in the darkness of the riverbank and cooked over the fire. The gentle breeze that had cooled the air when we started dinner picked up steam, and by the time dinner was done it was whipping up sand into our eyes. It was time to retreat to the tent. Not that anyone likes getting scoured by sand, but Jenny is in particular not a big fan of gusty winds, and she was getting things wrapped up in short order.

We had the awning up to protect from an earlier brief rain shower. As I stowed it in the lashing wind, the awning flogged and fought back, full of air. This briefly transported me back to my days at sea, of furling sails in a nighttime squall, taming big bights of billowing canvas and lashing it to a spar.

Tumbling into the tent we had to zip up all the openings to keep the sand from coming in, and it became stifling hot. Jenny remarked, “The irony is we’re going to need the fan.” 

I had to get up in the middle of the night to relive myself. The wind had died, and the skies were crystal clear. Against the black canvas of the sky white pins of starlight, the southern cross and a thick milky way beamed down upon me.

The ranger at the gate had encouraged us to visit Serengeti Ndogo (small Serengeti) in the northeast, where sometimes cheetah and even pangolin are seen. A pangolin was a major safari goal of mine, so he need say no more. Unfortunately I didn’t think to ask how often they’re seen. Once a week? Once a year? Once? 

He also said that the Mwagusi river was where more game would be, so we spent the day making a large counterclockwise loop. First northeast, along the winding riverbed tracks of the mostly dry Ruaha, then to the confluence of the Mwagusi and Ruaha rivers where there is a sandy dry riverbed crossing. From there we went to Serengeti Ndogo, which proved more or less fruitless for us, a few impala though quite good bird life. 

So far we hadn’t seen a lot of wildlife. Some waterbuck, impala, a lone ostrich and warthog, but the scenery was excellent. Ruaha is the park of baobabs, and the great trees lined the roads in sections, all shapes and sizes. Tall, thin, fat, short. Some with big holes, others smooth sided with almost purple bark, others the trunk and bark looking like the melted wax of a long burnt candle. 

It turns out that baobabs actually aren’t trees, they are a form of succulent. They have no tree rings, and when cut or they have fallen, the wood is a fibrous, useless material. But alive they have a myriad of uses. Their seed pods can be eaten by animals and humans, made into medicine and all kinds of other things. Elephants like to damage the trees, whether by rubbing their tusks on them or eating the bark, I do not know. But unlike other trees, a baobab completely ringed of its bark, will continue growing just fine, and will heal the bark if left alone.

Also we often see great big hives of bees in baobabs, with big slabs of honeycomb. Amusingly elephants do not like bees, and these trees appear to be somewhat less harassed by the elephants.

Birdlife here in Ruaha was also excellent, and we saw new kinds of rollers, weavers and finches all over the place. Also many birds of prey, which often we struggle to identify. 

Wandering through this remote and rugged park was a treat. Eventually we worked west from Serengeti Ndogo, and coming to the Mwagusi we started to see more wildlife. The Mwagusi was also dry, small pools of water here and there, but the river was not running. There was enough water though to attract giraffe, zebra, kudu and impala, frequently all hanging out together. Supposedly Ruaha is the only place you can see greater and lesser kudu in the same park, but we either only saw greater kudu, or we are lousy at identifying ungulates. Probably the latter.

Tracks4Africa had most of the roads in the park, fortunate since the map from the gate was not very detailed, but still we did find numerous roads and tracks that weren’t mapped on T4A, nor obviously on the gate map. Ruaha has lots of wandering scenic tracks to explore, some likely seasonal, and we were not disappointed with our options. 

Eventually we had to admit that game wasn’t that sparse here, we had just been looking in the wrong place. Starting somewhere around the Ifuguru special campsite to about ¾ of the way to Mbagi, we found game to be quite prevalent. Maybe not thick, but consistent. Several herds of elephant, grazers in the riverbeds, and signs of buffalo in the west.

One spot had a spectacular baobab reaching out over the road. I wanted some photos, and after a good look around I got out of the car to take a few photos of the land cruiser. The park rules allow getting out of your car as long as you are 200m from any wild animals. This went all as planned, no problem. Back in the car, on we went to look for more wildlife. 

The road wraps around a small kopje (outcropping of rocks) and comes down to the river. Down in the sandy dry riverbed, was a lion walking along. We saw a lodge vehicle, and both of us paced the lion, following along on the riverbanks.

This led to much excitement for us, and we spent a while looking at this lion and looking for the rest of the pride. The lodge vehicle went back on our track from before, back under that spectacular baobab that reachesout over the road, and he turned off the track and drove off-road about 100m to the rest of the pride. Driving off-road in this park (and most parks) is illegal, but the point here is those lions were not so far from where I got out to take a photo. A good and humbling lesson for me.

We weren’t able to see them well, so we continued on for the day and planned to return later. Exploring further west we found that fewer and fewer roads were on T4A, but some of those were on Maps.me.

In this case maps.me had several seasonal river crossings marked, and sure enough they proved to be real. After a bit of adventuring around, including a short look at a honey badger padding into the underbrush, we headed back to our lions.

The pride had moved down to the riverbed to drink, and wonderfully we were able to count 13 lions. Two large males, a mating pair, six cubs and two females. All were in various states of activity, and the cubs were particularly adorable and active. 

We had an excellent view from the opposite bank. Perhaps a little far away, but we can hardly complain. Jenny was overcome with the cuteness, developing a particular affinity for the smallest cub, who had a particularly light blonde colored coat. 

The cubs were restless, alternating between nursing, wrestling each other and even mock hunting the many vultures that were about. You could almost hear the vultures thinking, “Come on lions, get on with it and kill something, we want to eat.”

A film crew was also there, and we had a nice chat with the camera man. He wasn’t filming, but waiting to see if they would hunt. The film crew has a special permit that allows them to drive off-road and stay out at night; we were so jealous. Park rules said we had to be back in camp by seven PM. 

Finally we had to go, and I had to tear Jenny away. She will happily stay until the very last moment the GPS says we can make it back to camp in time, whereas I am always worried that we’ll have to slow down, or get a puncture, or whatever, and then be late to camp. This always results in me eyeing the clock, then Jenny, and she returning the look with a not so innocent, “what??” face, until we finally turn the key and get going. 

Our second night at campsite No. 1 was less windy. We were alone tonight and shifted over to the prime spot. We have a big flashlight we use to scout around camp at night, and after dark Jenny spotted a female lion on the opposite side of the riverbank. That night we heard lions roaring all night long. Roaring lions are not hunting, so there is no danger, but to be out there at night in an unfenced campsite with lions roaring not so far away is really special and certainly heightens the senses.

The next morning we made a more or less all day game drive, with a long lunch stop. I made a video about this as an example of “a day in the life.” I will, mostly, spare you the details.

A few notes. I should mention that this morning we found the Mwagusi pride of lions before the camera team and his scout. He rolled up on us and the pride after we had been there about 40 minutes already and thanked us for finding them; they had been looking for some time. He even joked that he would give us a radio and that, “we’d be good friends,” except that this was his last day of filming in the park. Dang! How fun would it be to help scout for the film crew? 

Our discussion with the camera operator and his guide was very educational, they were very friendly. He said there are two very active prides in Ruaha. One pride resided in the Ruaha river area near the public campsite. This was the one that we had heard from camp, roaring all night. He was keen to hear the news of their activity from us, and later that night went to track them. He said this pride are specialists in hunting giraffe, and will not bother with anything smaller than a zebra.

The other active pride was on the Mwagusi river. This pride’s territory is as far east as the Mwagusi Safari Camp, extending five to eight kilometers west along the river. This intelligence, and other tidbits, is what lead to our lion focused efforts on this particular day.

Sometimes we talk to other overlanders that think that it’s not worth it to go into the parks on your own, that without a guide you’ll only find the animals if you are lucky. Perhaps there is some truth to that if you only go once or twice, but it’s a big goal for us, and we have found over and over again good success in game viewing. Frequently we’ve been able to tip off guides to good sightings, rhinos and lions and the like, for which they are always grateful.

We think that the important thing is to use all the information available to you, to use all of your senses, and to put in the time. This strategy, which although not perfect, has yielded good results for us.

Our definition of “good results” is a one interesting sighting a day. That might be a pride of lions or if one is very lucky a hunt, but it might be also something more subtle, a flock of lovebirds, a honey badger, a python, jackal cubs or who knows. It’s not just about the big cats. 

On this particular day, when the heat of the day set in and wildlife is the least active, we took it upon ourselves to make some exploratory casts further away from the prime game viewing areas. We didn’t want to waste our chance to explore this park and see the various habitats and ecosystems it had to offer. We went as far as the Mwaembe Springs, where the roads were overgrown and tsetse flies the thickest. Then looping south, to the dry Mdonya riverbed and the other public campsite, not currently in use. Notes on the campsites in the Nitty Gritty.

All along this westward range we saw lots of signs of elephant, and quite a few small herds, along with imapala here and there, and a few buffalo. Ruaha is a very large park, and initially we thought to ourselves, “hmm, not much game,” but it did seem to be persistently around, and we had to revise our initial opinions after our time in the park.

That night, after a lot of game viewing we settled into Public Campsite No. 2. One pitch at this campsite has an excellent view of the Ruaha river, and the lions were closer to this camp, so we thought we might get another night of lion roar serenade.

The evening breeze was gentle and as the heat of the day eased away we savored cold beers and chatted around the fire, discussing the days explorations. It was really nice, the sort of evening you hope for when camping in a park. Earlier the camera team had mentioned that they thought the Ruaha pride would hunt tonight, so we swept around camp and into the riverbed with our large flashlight from time to time. Sometime after dinner we saw the headlights of a vehicle coming down the road to camp.

They pulled off, lights illuminating a clearing behind us. The binoculars showed us this was the film vehicle, with their coveted nighttime and off-road permit. If they were here, it meant the pride must be moving towards us, so we heightened our vigilance and were ready to retreat to the tent if need be. 

Not that we think of ourselves as adrenaline junkies, but we think this sort of camping in the wilderness is really fantastic, where we feel like we’re part of the environment (food chain?), not just looking in at it from afar.

Sometime around this same time period two substantially sized spiders made a quick pass through camp. I think these were some type of camel spider (whatever you do, do not google “camel spider” in a google image search), similar to the red romans that we have frequently seen in Botswana. I hate these things. They don’t have webs, but instead quickly scuttle around on the ground at the edge of the light hoping to stumble upon other insects. 

After the spiders went off to who knows where, a sizable scorpion also came into camp. Jenny really doesn’t like scorpions. I’m not a big fan either, but for whatever reason this particular arthropod doesn’t give me the heebie-jeebies like other insects do. Our previous experience with scorpions is that they mostly stay sort of in one spot, and as long as that spot isn’t in your camp, then you’re good to go. This one was bigger, and clearly played by different rules. 

He seemed to settle next to our kitchen area, and we decided this wouldn’t do. If I was more of a man of the bush, I’m sure I’d just stomp on it, but one can’t quite shake that feeling that, “if I miss, is its tail long enough that it can it sting me?” Jenny bravely squashes red romans for me if they are harassing us, so this one was on me.

I got the shovel, and after missing several times and managing to get the scorpion very agitated, I finally did the deed and then pitched him into the bushes. We have a UV light to scan for scorpions (they fluoresce brightly under UV light) and found several more scorpions around the perimeter of camp. These however were behaving, their little claws poking out of holes in the ground, and if you stepped near, they retreated underground. Much nicer.

The camera vehicle had left by now. And the scorpion situation was under control, so I did another sweep with the big flashlight. Lo, what do I see, but four powerful lionesses walking purposefully along the riverbed. Not towards us, and they paid no heed to the light. We watched in awe as the powerful animals patrolled across our view. Eventually they went up the opposite bank and out of view. We called it a night after that, no lions roaring this night. They were hunting.

We planned to leave the park this morning and drive back to Kisolanza, to prepare for the long road south to the coast. In the morning we hoped to find our lionesses from the night before, but had no luck. We still had a beautiful a game drive along the Ruaha river, as far east as the Mwagusi confluence. 

Park permits are issued for 24 hours from entry, meaning we had to be out of the park around noon. Not wanting to push it we made our way for the gate. After checking out one of the rangers had us fill out a detailed customer satisfaction survey for Tanzanian National Parks Authority, TANAPA. 

It was a lengthy survey, and in it we were incredulous to see TANAPA asking, “Would you pay more to visit this park?” Tanzania already has the highest park fees of any park in Africa, excepting highly specialized activities like gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

The Tanzanian parks are excellent. They have good wildlife. The topography, ecosystems and scenery, in our opinion, are more visually stunning that in Botswana or Zambia, though it is a close race. But the wide open vistas of the Serengeti, the kopjes and the plains and the flat top acacias, the baobabs of Ruaha, these cannot been seen in the countries further south. Does that mean they are “worth” more? In our opinion they have leveraged this too much, they are just too darn expensive. 

We are lucky that visiting these places is something we can afford, though it’s a splurge. If TANAPA keeps rising prices, they will price out all independent travelers and all of the middle class, and soon safari will just be the realm of the wealthy, which in East Africa it almost is already. 

All the parks in eastern and southern Africa have different rates for locals as opposed to international travelers. This makes sense to me. Certainly I would prefer somewhat lower fees, but there is no way any but the most wealthy Tanzanians would ever see their own wonderful wild places without the lower price offered to their citizens. 

We have pleasantly seen a lot more diversity in the parks in our recent travels. We talked to one lodge manager who generalized his experience, that the Africans that grew up in the bush or in the villages, that might have witnessed independence movements, they don’t care for the wilderness. But their children, who have grown up in towns and cities and in the new Africa of today, they want to see the wilderness. And those that are educated and have careers and are old enough to afford visiting these places are doing so more and more. I can think of no better way to ensure the wildlife preservation for the future than local support, and it makes it feel less like just a white man’s playground. 

Anyway, we filled out the survey and answered, “no” to all the “would you pay more money?” questions. Notes on park fees in the Nitty Gritty.

Then it was the drive back to Kisolanza. I was curious about the other road into the park, the more western route, so we took that. It’s about the same distance, but reportedly has some villages and camps and lodges for those that want to stay outside the park.

Taking this route we found the road to be heavily corrugated and generally miserable to drive. True, the villages and camps outside the park lie on this leg. But really, if you are going to pay all the money to visit the park, to us it makes no sense to stay outside and miss the prime game viewing hours in the early morning and the end of the day; time you’d have to spend driving to and from the gate. The prime game viewing areas in Ruaha are not at all near the entrance.

Eventually we made it to the tar and to Iringa. We stopped to pick up some supplies in town and then made our way south on the Tan-Zam highway, having an uneventful drive to The Old Farmhouse at Kisolanza Campsite.

Arriving at our campsite we noted a land cruiser similar to ours parked at the adjacent chalet. They came over, said hello and asked, “Are you by chance Andrew?” It turned out he had heard about our trip online, and a while back we had connected and had been swapping notes on WhatsApp. What a small world.

Generously they invited us for dinner in the outside dining area of their chalet. We really enjoyed the evening. Listening to their travel tales, they had had a heck of a time getting up here. Punctures, getting covid and border trouble, all kinds of stories. It happened that they were in the liquor industry, and these stories were exchanged over many drinks, beers and some suspect whiskey that had been smuggled into Tanzania in large soda bottles.

The next morning I felt a little worse for wear from the festivities the night before. I am slowly learning that in Africa one has to beware of the danger from late middle-aged white men; they always give you too much to drink!

The Nitty Gritty

Kisolanza – Ruaha via Iringa: 238 km

Kisolanza – Iringa: 55km, 1h 6m

Iringa – Ruaha Gate: 106km, 2h 35m 

The Old Farmhouse at Kisolanza 

The campsite is very comfortable, most pitches set in the shade of trees. Some sites have thatched shelters and power, some do not. Most, but not all, have fire rings. The altitude is fairly high here, something like 1,600m if I recall, so the temperature is very pleasant and coolish in the evening. 

Ablutions are “eco-loos”, as proprietor Nikki called them, which were perfectly made, maintained and cleaned long drop toilets with no odor whatsoever. There are also hot water showers, hot water from a donkey boiler. There is a dish washing area as well. Ablutions 4.5/5, though 5/5 for function.

They had a place to fill water, which we drank without treating with no ill effects.

They have a restaurant with a set menu. Theyused to have a wonderfully atmospheric restaurant, built in traditional local construction, mud walls and a thatched roof, but sadly there was some sort of insect invasion and they are in the process of rebuilding it. We had an excellent three course dinner, for which they set a beautiful table for us, like a nice restaurant. They do breakfast as well, though we make our own.

Wood was available at 4000 TSH bundle (exchange rate is 2300:1USD)

Camping is 23,000 TSH pppn

Dinner, 35,000 TSH/$15 USD pp

Importantly they also have a farmstall and coffee shop, down towards the bottom of the road. This very polished shop is what appears to be a refurbished workshop. In the large open area, previously a service bay, there are tables to sit at and it’s all nicely decorated. At the end there is a working vehicle lift, though disguised by the decorations, and they said that when the farmstall is closed on Mondays they still use it to service cars with. 

The farmstall has produce, eggs, whole frozen chickens, frozen meat and some other odds and ends. It is not particularly cheap, but high quality and you could do very well stocking up here. The coffee was whole bean, but they were kind enough to grind it in a hand grinder for me. 

Iringa – There is a large central vegetable market with everything you can think of that is locally grown. Across the street is an unassuming little shop called “Moclaud Mini Super” that has all kinds of good stuff. Coffee, cheese, spirits, snacks and other hard to find items. 

There is another little shop called “J Banobi Mini Supermarket” that is pretty well stocked, bonus for being on a relatively calm side street. Both of these are on iOverlander. 

Ruaha National Park

It costs $555.40 USD for us to be in the park for 72 hours and camp at public campsites. That is why I think that TANAPA is already extracting enough from us. 

The breakdown is:

$30 USD pppd entry (24 hour period)

$30 pppn camping fee, public campsite (special campsites are $50 pppn) 

$40 pd vehicle fee. I should note that officially the price for a vehicle over 2000kgs (such as ours) is actually an astounding $150 pd. I am told this fee was designed to discourage Kenyan tour operators from crossing over from Kenya and taking Tanzanian business, and this has been an effective deterrent. Self drivers are merely caught in the crossfire, or so I’m told anyway. 

On top of all of this is an 18% VAT. 

Katavi fees are the same, though we splurged for the special campsites at Katavi. Current TANAPA fees for all their parks are here:

Ruaha Campsites

Public Campsites: Tanzania doesn’t encourage independent travel, whether deliberately or not I don’t know. To offer you an example, take the campsite names. 

There are signs for public campsite No. 1 inside the park, but at the gate they only know this site as “Tembo”, not by a number. If you ask for No. 1 they may not know what you’re talking about. This is further compounded by the well worn map they offered us to take a photo of, where Tembo/Public Camp No. 1 is labeled “Msembe”. On the other hand, the other public campsite, No. 2, is not signposted as No. 2, it’s signposted as “Kiboko”, but on the map is labeled “Msembe 2”. So not very consistent.

When we checked in they only offered us Tembo or Kiboko, but on their own map there is a third public campsite, labeled Mdonya. We went to check it out and I would not recommend it. It had newish ablutions, but they are not being cleaned or maintained and sadly the baboons and other animals have invaded. The campsite itself has no view of the Mdonya river, and though shaded there was much detritus around the camping area. I’m sure they knew this, and thus didn’t offer it, but it satisfied our curiosity to check it out. Perhaps it is seasonal, when the Mdonya river is running?

Given the choice of public campsite No. 1 or 2, I would give narrow preference to No. 2, with two qualifications. First, I would stay close to where the best wildlife is, if that is No. 1, then that would be fine with me. Second, I would stay at whichever campsite has the riverfront site available. A little bit unfortunately at No. 1 the best spot is now occupied by a humongous cement fire ring. Also at No. 1 we did have, though minor, some nighttime traffic driving to and from the large ranger village. No. 2, at the riverfront, you can convince yourself that it is a proper wild camp. The ablutions at No. 2 are unequivocally nicer.

Special Campsites – Per the park map there are the following special campsites. We checked them out to the best of our ability:

Mdonya – This is quite near the “rope bridge” (featured in my video) marked on T4A, and near the Mdonya public campsite/ PCS No. 3 that was not in use during our visit. The site is quite small, but has an excellent view of the Mdonya river. We did see quite a few elephant in this dry riverbed, and the wild dogs were a few kms east of here. 

Mbagi – Where Mbagi is marked on the park map and on T4A has either a ranger camp or permanent safari camp installed. We did not venture closer after we saw the tents. However, it seems Mbagi has been moved, as later we came across a new looking sign saying “Mbagi Special Campsite” with an arrow. This short track lead to a smallish site on the banks of the Mwagusi river, quite far west. It was under a large tree full of monkeys. It didn’t seem all that fantastic to me, but I’m sure it changes a lot seasonally. The new Mbagi Special Campsite is located at S 07°36.1155, E 034°49.1164 There was no game in the area at the time. 

Mwagusi – This campsite appears to have a lodge installed in it.

Ifuguru – Accurately marked on T4A. Nice spot under a baobab tree on the bank above the Mwagusi river. If I was going to splurge for a special campsite this would be the one. 

Mhawa – We did not visit the site.

Wildlife – Our Swiss friend said he hadn’t seen much game, and that he’d read that game retreats to a northern plateau when it is dry. In contrast, we found the game viewing to be quite good, though it did take some work. Later, back at Kisolanza, Nikki said that we’d been lucky, that if it had rained as it was supposed to the we wouldn’t have seen much. So there are two contrasting opinions. Swiss guy says if it’s dry you won’t see much, or Nikki that says if it’s wet you won’t see much. I’m guessing Nikki has the upper hand in local knowledge here, but it shows that sometimes you just have to look for yourself.

Bird App – We use the iPad app “eGuide to Birds of East Africa” (Helm Field Guides). We are not particularly good birders, and our dedication tends to go up as larger game numbers go down. In practice we have not had good experience with this app. Unlike the Sasol Guide for Southern Africa bird app, it does not have a gallery view. Meaning when you search for birds it has to be by name. Which is kind of hard if you are trying to identify an unknown bird! The Sasol guide, and I gather the Roberts guide, though we don’t have that one, allows you to scroll through images to get at least in the right neighborhood. 

On top of this we have spotted several birds that are not in this app. When we see, for example, what is unequivocally an eagle, and then scroll through all the eagles, it sort of deflates our future birding ambitions. 

As far as I know there are no other East Africa birding apps, sadly.