Afri Roots Safari

Day 1: Monday 16th July

We left the house at 8.30am and got to our 1st destination at about 5pm with the careful driving of our driver, John Bosco. Our camp was called Ndovu Camp. This translates to Elephant camp. It was located about 500 metres outside the Selous Game Park. All the brochures boast that this park is bigger than Switzerland. About 5 minutes before we got there, we saw our first elephant. This was just outside the camp. We also saw some baboons. Our first night there, we just settled in, had dinner and went to bed. While eating, we could hear baboons in the distance and when we were about to go to bed, we heard an elephant make a loud noise that didn't sound too far away. Our tents were like army tents with a roof made of coconut leaves. The nearest one was mine, next door was Tende and Elaine and down the end was Billy and Sarah.

(By the way, Sarah and Billy - my sister and her boyfriend, came to Tanzania for a 2 week holiday)

About 12am, I heard an elephant pulling leaves off a tree about 10 metres away on the side opposite to everyone else. After a few hours of sleep, I woke up to a loud banging noise. I soon realised that an elephant was right outside my window. I could see the silhouette of his legs with the lantern outside Tende and Elaine's door. Behind that elephant, I could see another elephant walking between our 2 tents. His walking was like slow motion and he didn't make a single sound, not a sound of a dry leaf being stepped on, nothing. They spent about 15 minutes outside my tent. My adrenaline glands were knackered after they left. I slept like a baby after that, apparently sleeping through another group of elephants walking through.

Day 2: Tuesday 17th July

The next morning, we left for Selous Game park. While we were driving on the road, someone spotted an elephant on the side of the road, John Bosco jammed on the brakes, startling the elephant to say the least. He was about to charge at us but Tende told John Bosco to drive on. In the game park, the hunters clearly don't care too much to hunt giraffe. They were everywhere. We saw alot of impala and wildebeest too. We drove around some big lakes, full of hippos and the crocodiles would quickly go into the water whenever we came. One group of hippos we saw were surrounding a baby hippo, protecting it from the crocs.

Highlight of the day was when we spotted a hyena lying down in the shade. We drove over near him, he got up a walked away. Then Tende saw a leopard, which are quite rare to see. We drove over to him and he ran to the back of a bush. When we were driving to turn around, there was a impala that had all its organs eaten out but still had the meat on his bones. After we looked at that and drove a bit away, the hyena was quick to try and take the leopard's kill. The leopard then had a go at the hyena and chased him away. We were hoping he would start eating the meat and waited around for a while but he looked too tired after getting his kill and scoffing down the insides to finish his meal or even pull it up a tree.

After spending some looking for lions, we met another tourist jeep who told us where some were. So we drover to the location and there was another jeep there in the long grass looking at the 2 lions lying down. It started to rain so we had to get out of this area so not to get stuck in the mud. We mostly stuck to the lake and then went back to the camp for dinner, beer and bed. This night, I didn't sleep too well, the elephants were very loud eating. One group of them were outside Billy and Sarah's tent. One elephant pulled down some leaves off their roof. Some really stupid people in the tent next to them obviously got scared so started making noise and even came out with their lantern. Then the elephants left.

Day 3: Wednesday 18th July

Our second day on safari, which was Tende's birthday, ended with a walking safari, but not before another elephant decided to charge at us. We got too close and stuck in a small dip in the road. When the elephant started going mad, John Bosco tried to reverse but we couldn't get out of the big hole. Tende told him to rev the engine and when he did, the elephant stopped, looked confused and agitated and walked off in a hurry.

We ate lunch overlooking a dry river bed where 2 elephants were digging to find water and drinking. After lunch, we were driving to our campsite when we saw alot of vultures circling an area in the distance. We thought it was a kill but when we got there, we were told we couldn't go closer by park rangers. Poachers had killed an elephant and took it's tusks. They got 3 that day. It was terrible.

We drove to our camp, set up the tents and got ready for the walking safari. Thankfully, on the walking safari, we didn't cross paths with any lions, leopards etc. We came across warthogs, zebra, wildebeest, impala and giraffes. We walked beside the lake with the crocs and hippos. We also walked over a murder scene (A big patch of blood on the ground). We ended up at a hot spring where we went swimming.
Due to the lack of facilities in our campsite, this would be our wash for the day. When we got back to the camp, we set up a fire and we made dinner. We sang Happy Birthday to Tende and ate a cake Elaine had made for him.

After dinner I used the pit toilet. It was absolutely horrible. Tende informed me that if someone fell in, they would have to be treated for burns. After I was done, treatment for burns would be required if someone simply looked in it. When we were getting ready to go to sleep, Sarah spotted green dots when she shined the torch at the bushes. They were hyena's eyes. It was creepy. There were 2 of them. We could also hear hippos. The camp was set up on a hippo path. They come out of the water at night and this is one of the paths they use. While lying in my tent and the camp fire on my view, I was dying to see hyenas around the fire or a hippo. I was paranoid that every noise I heard, I thought was right beside my tent. Maybe it was but I doubt it. Due to several beers in my belly, I had to pee really bad. I decided I was not going to risk walking to the pit and just opened the tent, stood up and aimed to the side. I shined the torch around to see if any hyenas were about. There was only one but even one set of green eyes was creepy enough. I must have been nervous or something, as I had to pee 3 times in the middle of the night. At one stage in the night, I saw a hyena checking out the campfire and around it but that was it for the night.

Day 4: Thursday 19th July

Plans for the next were to drive out of the game park and drive to Mikumi to our final accommodation. Basically it was a B&B. This drive was about 10 hours of very bumpy dirt road. It was tough going. When we got there, we were so exhausted we just ate and went to bed.

Day 5: Friday 20th July

The final excursion was a hike up to Sanji Falls in Udzungwa. The views were incredible. When we were walking down, we came across about a thousand termites attempting to fly for the first time. 20 seconds later, an army of ants came in, in 2's and 3's and absolutely massacred the termites. It was my first viewing of a safari kill.
To be honest, it was cool the way they kicked ass. When we got the bottom, we went swimming in a cold spring and it was very cold. I would even go as far to call it nippy !!!!!

Day 6: Saturday 21th July

Our final day was just a 7 hour drive back to Dar. We drove on this main road which was through a game park. Imagine driving on the M50 (motorway in Ireland) and looking left and seeing 4 elephants, a few 100 yards down the road are a few giraffes but you can't keep your eyes off the road for too long as you might hit a baboon or an impala that was crossing.
Finally we arrived back in Dar, absolutely wrecked, so what do we do? Go out to an Ethiopian Restaurant and out to a club where the live band was so cheesy it was like a wedding. Fantastic !! Some drunk was trying to tell me he was Jesus which was...... amusing. Then back to bed to recover.