Ruaha National Park

200 Elephants Per Day

I spent a lot of time choosing our Tanazanian safari destination. I wanted something exceptional, inexpensive, with a taste of adventure (not tourist traps). I found that the best places for that are Katavi and Ruaha. But the first one is really far from Dar. So decision was quite easy eventually. Ruaha is really beautiful place, with landscape full of hills and baobab trees. Great Ruaha river is full of animals in dry season. We saw in one day more then 200 hundred elephants, one hundred giraffes, and many other animals (lions, udu, zebras, hippos etc.). We met just one car during one day. I can recommend Ruaha for everyone who wants taste real safari adventure. I felt we were first visitors there.

fantastic experience

where do i start?
Lets start at the beginning, left our camp which was located just about 7 km from the gate at around 6 in the morning in a land rover puma and a toyota, it was a huge squad of about 20 people.
at the gate, we meet the rangers in charge of collecting the entrance fees, the guys where awesome and kind, they even gave us a heads up on where to find what.

this time we didn't sleep in the national park, but there are so many options on different pricing if your interested, the cheapest are the government open campsites and the national parks hostels, where food can be bought at the rangers village inside the park or make your own food:)

the weather on the day was extremely hot "but what did we expect?? we were in the rift valley anyways it was bound to be hot" but later in the day it started raining just as we stopped for our lunch at one of the parks picnic sites.

the scenery was out of this world, the dry mwagusi river turned out to be an awesome animal spotting ground, and the greenery of the park did the landscape justice

we didn't have a guide, just a group of youngies. but we stopped all then guides in the other cars and they where very helpful and showed us all the places where we found leopards and lions and buffalos and crocs and hippos.

we saw so many animals families upon families of elephants, so many antelopes and impalas and kudus and jackals and pumbas and timons, zebras, baboons, so many different birds, squirrels, giraffes, and many more, and the wild flowers there are just beautiful.

the highlight of our trip is when a ranging male elephant chased one of our cars i was in the car behind just looking at the action i forgot to even film haha. and ruaha elephants are known to be one of the largest in east africa (after the ngorongoro and tarangire ones).

all in all i would do this again. i had a fantastic time, hope you have fun visiting ruaha :)

We arrives in Ruaha late in the evening in a heavy rainstorm so it was only next morning when i looked out of my window at the Ruaha Cottages and saw granite mountains, elephants and Giraffes grazing aloong the Ruaha river in the valley below that the wild beauty of it hit me . Its simply unbelievably, heart-breakingly stunning.

Ruaha national park is one of the few Tanzania’s famous wilderness area where one can have a rare experience of game viewing spiced up by the fascinating landscape.
Ruaha National Park has a high diversity of plants and animals including elephants, buffalos, antelopes and some of rare and endangered species like wild dogs.
The park is one of the Tanzania birds’ paradise with more than 571species and some of them are known to be migrants from within and outside Africa.

An awe-inspiring experience

This was the first time we'd visited Ruaha in the green season and it was a completely different experience from the dry season. I hadn't expected everything to be so lush. Everywhere was green, green, green! The birdlife was amazing - so many different species that it was difficult to know where to point the camera at times. One disappointment was that we didn't see as many raptors as usual. Because a lot of the animals had moved away from the area as there was no scarcity of water, a lot of the raptors had gone with them. Animal sightings were pretty good too, though obviously not as many as in the dry season. The weather was wonderful - we had no rain during our eight day stay and it was pleasantly warm day and night, though it did heat up a bit during the middle of the day but not uncomfortably so. Our camp (Mwagusi Safari Camp) was terrific as always with the most wonderful food and friendly staff. Our guide was exceptional, as was our driver. Ruaha is really picturesque with the most beautiful, varied landscape although the proliferation of trees and bushes did make photography a little tricky at times. We choose Ruaha because it is more remote than other parks in Tanzania, and consequently much less crowded. We have already booked to go back next year!

Ruaha was probably the most splendid park we have spent time in. Beautiful Baobab valley on the way there and hundreds of elephants inside the park along with all other kind of wild life did make a huge impression.

That is my favorite park, nothing compare the others, wildlife, people, a real feel of Africa!

A real feel of Africa with amazing wildlife and people

Hi folks,

I have just written a few reviews on the two safaris we did with Serene Tours Tanzania, but I want to share my feelings about Ruaha National Park and the other Tanzanian National Parks. Also I don't want you to make the same mistakes as we did in terms of parks selections and time of the year we, I, visited these parks.

Back in January, with my better half, we did a Southern Tanzania safaris circuit. The National Parks visited were Selous, Rufiji, Mikumi, Uduzungwa Mountains and Ruaha. We had an amazing time, it was simply stunning and it will remain a lifetime memory. A couple of days ago I did a northern circuit safari, where I visited on my own Serengeti and Ngorongoro, it was also spectacular but, way too crowded!

Ruaha is my favorite National Park in Tanzania, it has a real feel of Africa, stunning wildlife and people are amazing. Lodges were beautiful, food was good, our guide was amazing... Well, in a nutshell do not hesitate do to Ruaha!

My advice to you guys is, start with the Northern Circuits, chose the time of the year and then only visit the South of Tanzania, and do not miss out on Ruaha!

Enjoy your safaris in Tanzania!

Xavier

Few destinations are better during the dry season for lions and bat-eared foxes. My visit coincided with the green season and I still saw several lion and foxes. The scenery is spectacular. Ruaha is known for its numerous elephant herds. Colorful agama lizards frequent Ruaha River Lodge. The sounds of hippos fighting over territory in the river during the night just outside my banda door will always be with me.

Ruaha National Park the perfect place to stay in peace with the nature.

I spent 5 nights inside of Ruaha National Park, I have opted to stay in Bandas that for me was the best way to get close with the nature world, just bed and mosquito net, not even a toilet.
Together with the bandas(package), it was a guide and a chef cooking just for me and my wife. The chef, amazing, simple and delicious. The guide, Mansur, best person I have met in Africa.
Wildlife, was enough, we just couldnt see, wildbeasts and rinno, but in Mikumi we saw wildbeast, but rinno just at the north side of tanzania.
Scenery and weather was just amazing, hot but good.