Mikumi National Park

Mikumi is a good destination for short safari. Two days are enough to spot most of the emblematic savanna/miombo species. There are a lot of different bird species and the opportunity for photography is rather good.

Great experience in Mikumi!

We went on a 3-day safari in Mikumi National Park and it was a perfect safari experience. It is only about a 5-hour drive from Dar (it all depends on traffic--Fridays and Mondays take longer) but there were not many tourists once we got there, so you have the park to yourself to track down various animals. We were lucky enough to see male lions, female lions and their cubs as well as any other animal you could think of including birds! We saw elephants in a watering hole as well as hippos at another watering hole where you could get out and walk around. The park was beautiful and well-maintained. It stormed one night but overall the weather was perfect and the cloud formations out on the plains made for amazing photographs. There were one or two nice lodges (with restaurants) as well as outdoor camping options and cabin-type accommodations (with a small kitchen and local cooks associated with it). Overall, we really enjoyed our stay and it's a great alternative to flying all the way to Arusha just for a short safari.

Big, flat, tan, and wonderful

My 3-day stay at Mikumi National park was a wonderful break between two sections of intensive training in community-based healthcare. I was dead tired when I showed up after a six-hour drive through dusty roads, and I collapsed on my bed (thick mattress on top of raised stone dais) in the little banda that I shared with some teammates. I soon grew restless and walked through the common area onto our unenclosed "porch".

Our hut was situated in a long line of such buildings, named after various wild beasts of the savannah (I think that we were the cheetah), with the main lodge, dining area, pool, and shops at the far end. We could look over at our neighbors on their porch about fifteen meters away. I was in a team of ten people, so it was wonderful to be together.

The lodge is surrounded by park. We were totally cut off - the only electricity was to the main building for refrigeration (and the pool, of course). Even our huts had no lights. The savannah stretched out forever, a long distance of brown and tan with green splotches here and there. It was then that I noticed that we weren't just "at" the park, we were "in" the park.

Fifty meters in front of the porch where I sat, a group of zebras were rolling around like mad in a dustbowl. Further afield, a small herd of water buffalo milled around a watering hole. There were no fences. We were sitting in a safari.

A late lunch was served at the main lodge. We ate outside at a long table and dined well. I'm a vegetarian, and every effort was made to accommodate me, which was well-received. As we ate, a large grey elephant made his way to the watering hole just a short walk from where we sat. It was majestic. Here I was sipping fruit juice while this monster mammal sipped water right next to me.

After a lazy afternoon spent reading and talking on our porch, we returned to the lodge for a magnificent candlelit dinner. There's something very exciting about sleeping in a place surrounded by wild animals. Their noises helped me off to sleep.

The next day, we took off in two Land Cruisers on our safari. It was a wonderful way to settle the breakfast that we'd just finished. It seemed that we had driven forever when we spotted our first group of elephants, animals that until the previous afternoon I had only seen in zoos. But here they were, and plenty of them!

We found zebras, wildebeests, and plenty of very strange-looking birds. A group of giraffes proved too far a drive around some very steep-sided creek beds, so we watched from afar. For all of its flatness, Mikumi National Park boasts an impressive hidden landscape that you have to be inside to appreciate. Small trenches and treestands provide vantage points, and an easily-accessible, though terribly bumpy network of paths provides plenty of freedom to approach animals from a variety of directions. We even found ourselves a sleeping lioness, although she was clearly too tired to do anything "interesting" for us. :)

The last (and by far most fascinating) stop on our LONG drive through Mikumi was the accidental discovery of a hippopotamus-filled lake. We were driving along and suddenly found ourselves at the edge looking down. After a short drive along the edge, we came to a place where we could park the trucks just a few meters from the water. Hippos are outstanding animals, and we hadn't expected to see them, so it was a real treat. Lucky for us, they stayed in the water, swimming about quite lazily and not destroying us.

We returned to the lodge to eat and sleep, and followed up the next day with another short game drive on our way out of the park.

Although it is a bit of a drive, the hidden treasures of Mikumi National Park are not to be missed!