12 Day Southern Tanzania Safari Ruaha & Nyerere (Selous)

MORNING FLIGHT SOUTH WEST

A scheduled light aircraft flight from Dar es Salaam into Ruaha, continuing to the Usangu airstrip in the far south of the park. The flight crosses the Selous ecosystem and then the southern highlands, and the country beneath it steadily empties. Usangu was only incorporated into Ruaha in 2008 and only opened to visitors in recent years; there is a single camp in the whole sector.

AFTERNOON THE WETLAND

Met at the airstrip and driven to camp. The Usangu is a seasonal wetland floodplain, reedbed and open water that feeds the Great Ruaha River, and its birdlife is exceptional. The afternoon is a first orientation drive across the plain, ending with sundowners looking out over water rather than the dust you were expecting.

EVENING NIGHT DRIVE

A night drive with a spotlight after dinner. Genet, civet, bushbaby, honey badger, porcupine, and occasionally leopard or hunting lion an entirely different cast from the daylight animals.

MORNING WALKING AND FIELD RESEARCH

Out on foot at first light with an armed guide. Usangu is run as much as a research operation as a safari camp, and guests are welcomed into the work: camera trap checks and retrieval, acoustic monitoring, spoor transects and data recording. It is the most genuinely useful morning you can spend in a Tanzanian park, and it changes how the rest of the journey reads.

AFTERNOON WATER AND PLAIN

Depending on the season and water levels, the afternoon is spent on the wetland by boat or exploring the plain by vehicle. Between roughly May and November the water concentrates and the birding becomes extraordinary crowned crane, open billed stork, pygmy goose, skimmer and a long list of waders.

EVENING

A fire and a sky with nothing in it. There is no other camp within a very long distance.

MORNING ACROSS THE PARK

Travel north into the core of Ruaha by road across the park where the season allows, or by a short light aircraft transfer. Either way it is a proper crossing of one of Africa’s largest national parks, and the vegetation changes as you go: wetland to miombo woodland to the baobab and commiphora country along the Ruaha River.

AFTERNOON THE RIVER

Arrive at camp near the Mwagusi or Ruaha sand river system and go straight out. In the dry season the Ruaha shrinks to a chain of pools in a wide sand bed, and everything within reach comes to drink. Elephant dig for water in the sand with their feet and trunks. Buffalo herds arrive in the hundreds. Lion prides here run large twenty or more animals is not unusual because the prey base supports it.

EVENING

Back to camp in the dark. Ruaha at night is one of the noisier places in Tanzania.

MORNING ON FOOT

A walking safari with an armed professional guide. Ruaha is excellent walking country: the sand rivers give you a natural route, the baobabs give you shade, and on foot the guiding shifts entirely from spotting to reading. Tracks, dung, broken branches, alarm calls and wind direction all start to matter. You will cover less ground than in a vehicle and see considerably more.

AFTERNOON THE MWAGUSI CIRCUIT

A long afternoon drive along the sand river circuits. This is the part of Ruaha where the East and Southern African species lists overlap: greater and lesser kudu in the same afternoon, sable and roan in the miombo, and a chance of the park’s wild dog packs on the move. Ruaha’s leopard density is high and the riverine bush is where they hold.

EVENING

Sundowners on a rock above the river, then dinner in camp.

MORNING

A full day out with a picnic, planned over breakfast. By now your guide knows what the resident animals have been doing and where the wildlife has been concentrating, and the day is shaped around that rather than around a fixed route. Ruaha is large enough that you can drive for hours without meeting another vehicle.

AFTERNOON

The park’s baobabs deserve time in their own right. Some of them are well over a thousand years old, and elephants strip and gouge them for moisture in a way that leaves every tree individually scarred. The late light on that landscape is the best photography of the southern circuit.

EVENING

Last night in Ruaha. Tomorrow the journey moves to the water.

MORNING FLIGHT TO THE RUFIJI

A morning game drive to the airstrip and a scheduled light aircraft flight east to Nyerere, usually with one stop en route. Ruaha and Nyerere are far apart and this hop is what makes the southern circuit work; the flight takes around ninety minutes and camp to camp luggage handling is standard.

AFTERNOON FIRST BOAT

Met on the airstrip and taken to camp near the lake system, then straight onto the water. A boat safari is a completely different way of seeing a park: you move quietly, at eye level, and the animals behave as though you are not there. Hippo pods, enormous crocodile, elephant crossing between islands, and a bird list that includes skimmer, white fronted bee eater colonies in the banks, and both fish eagle and palm nut vulture.

EVENING

Back to camp at dusk. Five nights on the Rufiji.

MORNING THE LAKE CIRCUIT

A full morning around the chain of lakes Manze, Nzerakera, Siwandu and the channels that link them. This is the wildlife heart of the park: the lakes hold water when everything else dries, so the game concentrates on their margins. Giraffe, buffalo, waterbuck, impala and elephant in numbers, with lion working the edges.

AFTERNOON WILD DOG COUNTRY

Nyerere holds one of the largest African wild dog populations left in the world. Packs cover very long distances and sightings are never predictable, but denning season in the middle of the year improves the odds considerably, and the guides here track them with real commitment. When a pack is found and hunting, it is among the most extraordinary things in African wildlife.

EVENING

Dinner by the river. The hippo make themselves heard all night.

MORNING ON FOOT

A long morning walk with an armed guide, often starting with a short boat transfer to put you on ground you could not otherwise reach. Walking in Nyerere means sandbanks, riverine forest, palm stands and open woodland, and the emphasis shifts to the small things tracks in wet sand, dung beetles, terrapins, birds, the smell of the bush with the large animals encountered on their own terms.

AFTERNOON

An easy afternoon: a boat out for the last of the light, or a chair and a book on the deck above the river. This journey has deliberately few moving parts and there is no need to fill every hour of it. Optional: Fly Camping A night out on a Rufiji sandbank in a light bedroll under a mosquito net, with dinner cooked on the fire and nothing between you and the river. Arranged in camp, subject to conditions and river level. USD 350 per person.

MORNING

A longer excursion upriver towards Stiegler’s Gorge, where the Rufiji narrows and cuts through a hundred metre gorge. The country upstream is wilder and less driven than the lake circuit, and the drive there is as much of the point as the destination. Picnic lunch in the field.

AFTERNOON

Work slowly back through the woodland and along the river. Nyerere’s scale is genuinely difficult to convey the park is roughly the size of Belgium, and the sector that visitors use is a small northern fraction of it.

EVENING

A fire on the sand and dinner under the palms.

MORNING

The last full day is left open and planned over breakfast. Boat, foot or vehicle, or some combination of all three by this stage you know which of them you like best, and the camp will build the day around it.

AFTERNOON

A final boat safari for the golden hour on the water, which is when the Rufiji is at its best: low light on the palms, elephant coming down to drink, and the whole river turning copper.

EVENING

Final dinner. Twelve days, two parks, ten nights in the field and almost no time spent travelling between things.

MORNING

A last activity where the flight time allows, then a scheduled light aircraft flight from Nyerere back to Dar es Salaam for your onward international connection. Timings are set by the day’s published schedule and confirmed before departure. The southern circuit is the version of Tanzania that most visitors never see, and after ten nights on two rivers it is difficult to argue that the north has the better of it.