Ruaha National Park

Although the wildlife is a bit more elusive, you will have this park virtually to yourself. And it is a vast expanse of river, woodland and grassy plain open to exploration. If you self drive, you must endure the long, rough access road. But you can camp anywhere, with no neighbors except the odd cheetah. Safari as it is meant to be.

Ruaha has big and natural beautiful animals seems to be close to Katavi but Katavi still the best.

The Great Ruaha River is the centrepiece of this wonderful park. It is remote, wild and very beautiful. The baobab trees constitute one of many highlights, providing a dramatic backdrop for the wildlife and birds that abound. Special sightings could include lesser kudu and the Tanzanian red-billed hornbill. (My tip: Don't miss the wonderful museum dedicated to Chief Mkwawa of the Hehe tribe near Kalinga on your way in. It is well worth a stop!)

Superb safari in Ruaha NP

Me and two of my friends started our three day, three night safari by flying in to Ruaha Mwakusi airstrip. From there we were picked up by our guides and headed out to the wild. We had excellent guide crew, they had wide knowledge of animals and plants and were really nice company for us. Also the bush lunches they served us were really tasty.

Ruaha is full of animals, already during the first hours of the first day we saw huge amount of them, including lions and leopard. And the same continued the following days, possibly the biggest highlight was watching pack of four cheetah to stalk their prey for few hours. Overall we counted that we saw something like thirty different mammals, and at least as many birds. Scenery of the park was very nice, there was a lot of variety and not just flat plans. It was also not crowded at all there, we perhaps saw one or two other cars there, so we were pretty much on our own all the time.

We stayed at the Mdonya Old River camp, which is open area where animals can (and will) roam freely. We enjoyed listening to the nightly noises around our tents, we preferred that over lodge accommodation. Everything worked smoothly in the camp, and the dinners they made us were of highest quality. Exchanging experiences of the day at campfire with other travelers was nice ending for a day.

I can fully recommend Ruaha for your safari destination, you will enjoy the peace you have compared to the other crowded parks and all it has to offer. One of us has been in many parks in Africa before, and he considered it possibly the best experience he has had so far. I can easily believe him.

Ruaha is spectacular but game is sparse.

Ruaha had more Animals.But, it dose not compare with Serengeti.

As wild as possible

When I was thinking about visiting Tanzania, it was primary because of marine reservation park in Mafia Island and whale sharks. But when you travel half the world you want to see as much as possible right? So visiting one of the inland national parks was obvious. And the I saw a BBC documentary about Ruaha, and it was clear as a sky where to go.
Ruaha was my second Africa national park (Kruger was the first one) and I have to say I was blown away by the nature and the wildness. Right the day when we get to accommodation we saw two lioness close to the watering hole and we where there alone. Just me and my wife, sitting silently in the car listening to the birds and the breathing of the two lioness. And then herd of elephants come to the same watering hole and drove the lions away. I guess that is what watching the wild means. During the whole week we saw around only 8 other cars cruising the park, rest of the time it was just us and plain nature. The best way how to enjoy the park is to pack some supplies, drove early morning to some place where the animals gather (watering holes, fords, pools, river) sit and watch the animals coming and going and you will be rewarded for sure. Of course you need your own car.
I have been there during dry season - November - and the temperature was enormous - 50C during the day and 35 during the night. So be aware of this while there is no air conditioning in the accommodation and zircon in the car is useless while you drive so slowly through the park that it is not working well. The accommodation is basic. We stayed in the cottages (run directly by the NP). Two rooms, toilet + shower. Price 50USD pp/pn. Yes, I know it is quite a price for basic accommodation. The cheaper type, bandas, 30USD pp/pn, don’t have toilet and shower and basically it is just a metal hut with bed. And metal hut in 50C degrees during the day quickly change in to an oven. So the accommodation and the services absolutely do not match the price, but you have to accept that you pay a lot because there is no other way. In the whole Ruaha there is no proper shop, just two dinning places, where you get mostly chicken and rice or potatoes. So if you can, bring a lot of your own supplies. The only thinks you can buy there is bier, water, coke, rum and gin. Hope they restock the rum and gin while they had only one bottles, which we bought out. And of course in the cottages there is no fridge, I never drunk so much warm bier as in Ruaha.
The great think about staying few nights in Ruaha is, that the accommodation is not fenced. So you sit a front of the cottage enjoying the view and suddenly there is a herd of kudus just five meters a front of you, or hyena. Regular guest every evening, looking for some leftovers.
You wanna stay in the wild and under proper roof at the same time? You have enough money to spent? You have your own car (our 4x4 Toyota Rav 4 was OK)? Than Ruaha is perfect place to spent few days and watch and listen.

Ruaha - if you want to avoid the crowd

Even though it is the largest National Park in Tanzania, it does not carry the same touristy tag as Serengeti. This was exactly why we chose this park during our first visit to Tanzania in June 2014.
The park is rather remote and we were flown in by Coastal Airways from Tarangire. The Kwihala Camp had 6 double-bedded tents and therefore had that personal touch from our hostess Sandra and her staff. The facilities at the camp were superb with great food and wine.
Our guides, Lorenzo and Leverd were full of enthusiasm and were not hesitant to go that extra mile whenever needed. The camp had a few vehicles and we were lucky enough to get a vehicle for just 2 of us most of the time. The vehicles are side-open (top-covered) which have their pros and cons – great for general wildlife viewing but rather restrictive to watch and photographs birds in flight. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/pravin_nahar/15493381299/in/album-72157649073470005/)
We were greeted with a superb sunset near the Ruaha river on the day of our arrival.

The usual arrays of wildlife and birds will keep you interested. We had some close (but safe) encounters with elephants.

The highlight of the trip was to watch a pride of 1 lion (named Grumpy by the locals) and 11 lionesses. The pride was feeding on an elephant died naturally a few days before our arrival. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/pravin_nahar/15493869208/in/album-72157649073470005/)
There were 3 young brothers who, being evicted from this pride, were trying to sneak in to have a bite or two. Their encounter with Grumpy (the leader) was something of a life-time experience for us – he managed to chase them (the 3 brothers) away one by one, making sure his pride is well looked after. The role of the lion (even though he doesn’t take part in hunting) in the pride was very obvious!!
In simple words, if you want a safari experience minus the crowd, visit Ruaha.

For my photos please copy and paste the link in your browser: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pravin_nahar/sets/72157649073470005

Hot and lots of Tzetze flies but still I love the place. It´s really wild.

One of the best things about Ruaha when I visited was that you felt as if you were the only people there - in contrast to the better-known parks, where there were always crowds of vehicles around anything interesting. There was a great variety of wildlife, although we weren't all that successful with seeing the big cats.