East of the Ruaha River Trip II

Great view of the dry Great Ruaha River

Having had such a great time exploring the land adjacent to the national park, we decided to head north and explore a similar area. We didn't have as much information as we did in our previous trip and the road was in worse condition, but it felt great to get out and explore!

The first half our day was quite miserable as the surrounding area was dense thicket with poor visibility as well as loads of tsetse flies. We pushed on and eventually reached a better habitat with acacia woodland and large baobab trees. We started to see wildlife like zebra, giraffe, and kudu, though everything was very skittish. We had heard there is/was quite a bit of poaching in this area and the shyness of the animals certainly supported this theory. 

In the evening we camped in the bush without a soul around. About an hour after the sunset we heard the familiar growl of a lion, somewhere closer than one km. I made sure the fire was going pretty good before we went to sleep. We were nearing a full moon so there was quite a bit of visibility and we spotted a pair of Black-backed Jackals inquisitively investigating our site. 

The next day we continued to explore the area and had a great view of a hundred plus elephants and buffalo from a distance. We saw elephant tracks and signs everywhere but we didn't see any from our car. Once again this reflects the likely tense interactions that they have with humans. 

We passed through some really cool grasslands and hugged the east side of the Great Ruaha River, which is the border to the national park. We tried to cut back east towards another village but we found the road blocked by a tree fall. We decided to go back the way we came, which was fine since we were prepared to drive quickly to avoid the tsetse flies!!

Great Ruaha River with an elephant skull

Campsite with the moonrise