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DaveGibsonImages.com
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.
Xavier
CH
Visited:
January 2016
Reviewed: Aug 27, 2016
Email Xavier | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
A real feel of Africa with amazing wildlife and people
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
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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
Xavier
CH
Visited:
August 2016
Reviewed: Aug 27, 2016
Email Xavier | 35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
That is my favorite park, nothing compare the others, wildlife, people, a real feel of Africa!
Sergej Osipov
ES
Visited:
November 2015
Reviewed: Apr 18, 2016
Email Sergej Osipov | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
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.
An awe-inspiring experience
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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!
Selestinus Emanuel
TZ
Visited:
October 2014
Reviewed: Mar 24, 2016
Email Selestinus Emanuel | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
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.
David Yekutiel
BE
Visited:
February 2016
Reviewed: Mar 2, 2016
Email David Yekutiel | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
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.
salvina.poppe
TZ
Visited:
December 2015
Reviewed: Jan 28, 2016
Email salvina.poppe | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
fantastic experience
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,
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the dry mwagusi river turned out to be an awesome animal spotting ground, and the greenery of the park did the landscape justicewe 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 :)
As wild as possible
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
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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.
Tomas Pfeifer
CZ
Visited:
September 2015
Reviewed: Jan 3, 2016
Email Tomas Pfeifer | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
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.
