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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.
Sam Nicholls
GB
Visited:
January 2019
Reviewed: Mar 16, 2019
Email Sam Nicholls | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Excellent birding in a beautiful National Park with very varied scenery.
Wonderful wildlife, particularly of large numbers of elephants. We had 2 very good leopard sightings and numerous other mammals. Lions were heard but not seen other than in the far distance.
Elad
Visited:
August 2011
Reviewed: Sep 10, 2012
Ruaha - wild, remote, and undiscovered
Ruaha in August was fantastic. We opted to go to Ruaha as we wanted to get away from the hordes of tourists in the northern (serengeti) parks. Yes it took longer to get to, but the drive out to Ruaha was part of the experience. The scenery was breathtaking, and it there were animals wherever you looked. I think for us was the fact that in many cases we felt we had the park to ourselves. We spent hours alone watching a pride of 24 lions. At one point we just spent an afternoon watching a herd of elephants bathe and play all around us. When we counted there were more than 80+ elephants in the horizon, and no other safari cars to be found. Our tour operator, tanzania adventure, was fantastic. Our driver new all the right spots, and was extremely experienced, and knowledgeable. All in all, Ruaha was the highlight of all the parks we visited in Tanzania.
T Sharp
Visited:
August 2012
Reviewed: Jul 29, 2013
This is one of my favorite game reserves in Tanzania, as it is a little more remote, and harder to get to. This means there are less people, and the wildlife is a little more plenty. I had an amazing time there, as I was fortunate to get to stay for a good 3 months, and really get to know the area. It is a HUGE park, and ranges from tropical/riverine conditions, to highland and even mountain like terrain where Roan can be found. Lots of buffalo, and elephant as well. I highly recommend this area.
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.
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!
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
David Griffiths
GB
Visited:
June 2017
Reviewed: Jul 2, 2017
Email David Griffiths | 65+ years of age | Experience level: first safari
Outstanding experience. We hardly saw any other 4 x 4's, average was about 1 a day.
Alberto Aragones
ES
Visited:
October 2015
Reviewed: Nov 21, 2015
Email Alberto Aragones | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: over 5 safaris
Ruaha, a real taste of wild Africa
We arrived to Ruaha NP after having visited Selous and Mikumi, it took us about 8 hours from Mikumi, with a two hour stop in Iringa to refuel and buy some food, water and drinks. From Iringa to Ruaha NP the road is not very good and you will need a 4WD car, you have two options to make the second half of the route, take the one to the right, the road is much better.
At
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the main gate you will spend some time, paperwork is slow, also payment by credit card is preferred, if you are not sure of the number of days you are going to stay, you can always extend your permit in the HQ office close to the airstrip, like we did twice. The accommodation options are the usual, expensive luxury private lodges, cottages, bandas and camping but not very massive. I can only tell about camping because I have never used the other options. We were assigned to "public campsite #1", it is located in the Ruaha river bank with a very scenic view, some trees provide shadow and there are some facilities like a kitchen building and very basic toilets, we were the only group in the campsite. Campsite #1 is about two or three km from the rangers camp, it was a pleasure to share a beer with the park people in the community hall every night, you can even join the buffet they have available for the park personnel and their families (10,000 tsh or 5 USD).If you have good maps loaded in your off-road gps you don't need a guide to move safely around Ruaha NP, if in doubt, just ask anyone in the community hall, but the best routes for game drive are obvious, simply follow the river sides. If you are not good at spotting animals you will appreciate the help of a guide that you can hire in the rangers camp for about 30 dollars a day. We start the morning game driving very early in the morning after a brief breakfast, and it usually lasts until we can no longer stand the heat, then we go back to the campsite to have a shower and a rest. Wildlife is great in Ruaha, we saw lots of elephants, giraffes, buffalos, wildbeast, zebras, waterbuck, impalas, warthogs, grand kudus, hipos, crocodiles, osprays, ostriches, etc. As for predators we saw hyenas, leopards, jackals, wild dogs and lots of lions, we missed cheetah, we were told that in that season they move to another part of the park. Game drive in the evenings is also very interesting but I prefer to choose a good spotting point close to the river and relax watching how animals come to drink. We spent 5 days in Ruaha NP, so we had time to explore the hills and some other parts of the park, specially Mwagusi river, where we found the wild dogs pack.
October and November are very hot in Ruaha, but it is the beginning of the raining season and we were rewarded with a couple wonderful storms. We were told by the people in the HQ camp that the park was in lack of visitors, and that it was diificult to maintain the park with such a low number of visitors. Poaching is a big problem in Ruaha because it is a very large park.
We met just a few tourist, Ruaha is not Serengueti or Ngoro-ngoro where you can meet dozens of other vehicles in every game drive, in Ruaha you may meet one or two if you are lucky, and we always stopped and shared our findings (the elephants herd drinking in the river or the pride of lions eating a zebra in the river side).
In general, Ruaha is, if not the best, one of the two best parks I have visited, I cannot tell about luxury lodges or other accommodation types, but camping is great and you will enjoy the nature very close. Campsite #1 will surprise you, a pride of lions lives there and will share the camp with you, just respect the norms and follow the recommendations and you will be safe.
I hope this comments help someone to enjoy Ruaha as we did.
Regards,
Alberto Aragones
DaktariPaula
Visited:
November 2006
Reviewed: May 13, 2012
Ruaha National Park is one of the most fantastic parks in Africa.
Ruaha NP has beautiful scenery, lots of different animals, big herds of giraffs and buffalos and very few tourists. Brings you the realy african feeling. Have been there 4 times and look forward to the next time...