An elephant had wondered into the camp during the night and we hadn’t even woken up.
We had a fairly early start, made a picnic lunch and headed into the park. We travelled along the eastern section of the Ruaha River. I can see why the park is considered by some critics to be amongst the best in the world. The scenery is truly spectacular; the landscape is littered with baobabs of every age, size and shape – heaven. Travelling along the river road you see vast landscapes of African savannah. There is a wide variety of game and bird life; again we saw vast herds of ellie, a leopard and some bird species which we are still trying to identify. The river is teaming with hippo, we sat and watched around 30 popping up to see us at one point (you would have loved it Nicks).The park is so unspoilt and not at all commercialised, we came across only 2 parks board vehicles the whole morning.
I think the reason why this gem of Tanzania is so rarely visited is because it is so difficult to get to and so few people know about it. It is a pity about this, like so many of the other parks in these poor countries, so much money could be generated through tourism. If only people like Madonna and Angelina would plough some money into making the parks more accessible and then marketing them. Next time Madonna arrives in Africa to adopt little Simba and Nala, possibly someone should let her know that for the cost of educating and clothing the two she could finance 100km of road and send all her A-list celeb friends on a stunning safari. The revenue generated through tourism could provide education for thousands of orphans and not just 2, not to mention the jobs it would provide. To be fair, I guess the publicity generated from adopting orphans, long term, is more profitable than a couple of kilometres of tar.
After a wonderful morning of game viewing we returned to make Panda’s potjie. This is how it works; I source and buy the ingredients, chop up the meat, peel and prepare the vegetables and potatoes, sort out the herbs and spices and other ingredients. All this is then laid out in order for Gray. He then sticks a potjie on the fire, browns the meat and throws the rest of the ingredients in, with a bottle (in this case a box) of red wine and leaves it to simmer for a few hours. Of course everyone, including himself, thinks HIS Panda potjies are delicious and wonderful.
Gray was the most stressed I have seen him in a long time this afternoon – during the potjie making – he discovered that his new 5L box of red wine (yep, we have resorted to ‘doos wyn’ and it’s pretty good) was leaking. He spent more time locating 2 tiny puncture holes in the aluminium sack and repairing them and then the box, than he had spent repairing a puncture the other day.
Lula, the camp assistant, is amazing; he keeps the camp and gardens clean and in order, he sorts our hot water (by heating it over a fire, climbing up a ladder and with buckets of hot water and filling up a tank), he brings us fruit off the trees and he bakes us bread and rolls and best of all, he has a permanent smile on his face – I want to take him back to S.A. with us.
Sitting under Acacia trees and a star filled sky, eating a delicious potjie (made by Panda) on Lula’s freshly baked bread, with our box of red wine – what more could we wish for.
Great Ruaha River
Giant Baobab, one of millions.
Curious hippo
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