Fred wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> after our last year honeymoon trip dedicated to Masai Mara, my wife
> and i are planning our next safari.
>
> Our idea is the following : "south" Tanzania with
> the following parks and reserves :
> Mahale, Katavi, Ruaha, Mikumi and Selous.
>
> Have u ever been there ?
Did Mikumi, Katavi & Ruaha in June 2006 (first Safari ever).
> What do u think of these places ?
We had been turned off of going the Northern route due to reports of
very "tourist-crowded" regions. Particularly liked Katavi as there's
only 4 Jeeps (2 for each 12-customer camp) in the entire park.
In general, we found that each location had its merits and slight
variations in wildlife...wouldn't mind doing these three again.
> What can be seen there (mammals, bird, ...)
See photo album (PDF, 3.2MB) at URL:
They're also more-or-less repeated here, in a different format:
From either of the above, you might notice the absence of Rhino,
Leopard, Cheetah and oddly enough, Heania. We weren't expecting Rhino
(region) and were aware that Leopard or Cheetah can be hit-or-miss and
that it wasn't really a region known for 'common' sightings. Note
that because we were all in Parks (not any Reserves), we had zero
night game drives.
In general, we were pleasantly surprised by the bird life, which we
had not really anticipated, being that it was our first trip. Camera
gear was also a bit limiting, as I had a maximum effective telephoto
lens of "ONLY" 450mm, which any truely dedicated birder will tell you
is nowhere near long enough. I made due.
> Which season is the best ?
How much dust are you willing to tolerate?
Our trip was in June, which was "early" in the dry season. As such,
water was still fairly plentiful in some areas, so there wasn't the
dramatic concentration of wildlife at watering holes, or life/death
conflict from predators. However, the good news was that the roads
were frequently quite managable in that we didn't really eat much dust
at all, and my digital SLR didn't get its sensor gunked up at all.
Next time, I'd consider going slightly later in the dry season, but
this can be hard to gage, as local weather/climate pattern variation
can cause a month or two worth of effective "shift", depending on if
rains came late, or if they didn't come at all, etc. In our case,
Katavi's rains had come late (so they were still 'wet') and Ruaha was
effectively in drought.
> What about accomodations ?
We stayed at the Foxes accomodations at each, and also used them to
fly between these camps. Found them to be uniformly good, both for
staff and for accomodations. Their website is:
We are still occasionally in communications with a couple of the
staffmembers that we met in 2006 who have occasional email access. We
would use this company again.
BTW, do be aware that you do need to take along a windproof jacket.
The mornings are cool (around 62F or 16C) which isn't necessarily a
problem at breakfast, as the air is still. However, when you board
the camp's jeep for the morning game drive, its lake of windows,
doors, and a folded down windshield means that you're exposed to the
"wind" of your vehicle's forward motion, which effectively acts as a
windchill, so at 20mph velocity, 65F feels like 45F (or colder).
Consequently, we wore a windproof jacket every morning and we usually
would not take this layer completely off until the jeep stopped for
the mid-morning (10:30AM-11:00AM) rest break.
-hh |
69047. Re: A future plan to Tanzania : Mahale, Katavi, Ruaha, Mikumi and
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