On Saturday we passed through a nearby village and ran into a guy we know that is in the process of building a lodge near the park. We had a brief chat and he remarked that the previous week he went into the community managed buffer zone (Wildlife Management Area or WMA) and had seen Sable in the woodland. We had seen them in that area last year and decided that it might be fun to go out there on Sunday morning and see if we could find them.
We woke up around 6am on Sunday morning, had a small breakfast, and then packed a coffee for the road. We also brought along one bottle of water, our binoculars, and a small tube of sunscreen. We hadn't really discussed the plan in detail but Ana thought we were going to a small lookout point about 45 minutes away and I thought we would drive a little further down the road into a miombo woodland. Well, we started driving through the woodland and we found a road we hadn't taken before. It was a very nice wooded area so we thought, what the heck, let's just drive here for a while. After a short while we were hit by a massive swarm of tse-tse flies. We sealed up the car and continued on, which wasn't so bad since it was still early and the woodland provided adequate shade. Keep in mind, our vehicle does not have air conditioning so the only way to protect ourselves was rolling up the windows.
I'm not sure how time got away from us, I'd like to think we were just intrigued by the various habitats we kept passing through. We assumed that no one had taken the road in the past year (no tracks since the rains) and it felt undoubtedly very wild. We passed through some grassland, acacia woodland, miombo woodland, and various seasonally flooded areas. At some point I thought we were actually getting quite close to a town called Madibira and since the road was in such a poor condition I thought we might as well try to reach there instead of turning around. The road in fact got worse the closer we got to Madibira and around 1030am we pulled into a small village. Our car was absolutely teeming with tse-tse flies and the villagers at the water pump were less than enthusiastic that we brought them from the bush. There were about ten wide mouthed villagers getting water and we engaged one of the younger guys. He was shocked we had come through the bush and remarked that we were actually not in Madibira, it was still further down the road. We thanked him and headed off
Now at this point we actually decided to address the predicament that we were in. We both agreed that we did not want to drive back through the WMA as we felt we barely made it through unscathed and it wouldn't be wise to test our luck. We could drive out to the highway, circle up to Iringa town, and drive back to camp from there, but it seemed to be a long and boring route home. My idea was to drive up through the headwaters of the Great Ruaha River and the southern end of the park to circle back around. We only had a picture of a poorly marked map but it seemed like the most exciting route to me. Nevermind that we had no idea if there actually was a road connecting where we were to the main part of the park, I thought we'd figure it out as we went.
Since we had been dangerously under prepared, we stopped in Madibira to buy some water, chapati, and four watermelons (they were delicious!). We also began to ask locals about a road through the park and several seemed to indicate that yes, it was possible. We started to move north of Madibira to find the road to the park.
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| This watermelon was so clutch. |
At this point I should mention that we were in what was known as the Usangu wetlands, the most recent addition to the national park. Gazetted in 2006, the Usanga wetlands are a bit of a disaster for a few reasons. First, in the 1990s there were several projects to encourage rice growing in the region which unfortunately resulted in so much water being drawn that the perennial Great Ruaha River began to run dry for large portions of the year. There has also been overgrazing from the pastoralists which has also contributed to environmental degradation. Now, in 2006 the government decided to gazette a huge portion of this area to the national parks and there was quite a bit of controversy over relocation programs. Based on the GIS maps I have and first hand observation, it appears this issue has never really been settled.
It was impressive to see the huge rice field and irrigation canals and people were quite friendly in pointing us in the right direction. At a point it was pretty confusing to choose the proper road in the labyrinth of rice fields but we finally got on the right track. I was drunk with confidence that we'd actually navigated to the proper road but I should have known my confidence was soon to be shattered.
Long story short, there are basically two roads into the park from where we were. One goes to the headwaters of the Great Ruaha River and one cuts up north to the southern part of the park. I thought there was only one road and numerous people assured us that we, quote, “couldn't get lost”. And they were right, we didn't get lost but we sure didn't end up where we wanted to be. We passed through several small settlements of mostly pastoralists and finally hit an open area that was obviously the park. The area changed from a high impact zone to a nicely conserved seasonal wetland. We were pleased to see a group of sable and a group of roan. My spirits were high but as we kept on our journey it became clearer to me that we were heading not the interior of the park but for the headwaters. I was hopeful for a road cutting to the north but I was not so lucky. At some point I decided to cut our losses and we turned around. We continued to ask people if there was a road through the park and coming from the opposite direction it was more obvious that yes, there was a road that cut north. We were told it was unmarked by a school that has a metal roof, and the school was also unmarked.
Remarkably, we were able to discern the school from other buildings and began to take a rough road behind it. Now it was around 2pm and not only had we been driving for seven hours but we were still a looong way from home. We followed the road past several livestock enclosures and I was not very confident it was the right road. Trees and grass soon became a bit more prominent and eventually we saw a child grazing livestock. I got out of the car to ask them if we were on the right track but as soon as I stopped the car the child fled. I chased after them shouting that I was looking for help and I wasn't a ranger but they either hid or kept running. Either way, I seemed to have gotten my answer by their reaction.
We continued on the road and we soon were confident that it was the correct road. We passed through some decent woodland on a very rough road filled with jagged stones, narrow passages thorn laden trees, and several small detours to avoid a treefalls. I continued to be hopeful that at some point I thought we'd get to the Great Ruaha River and there would be a crossing. After we crossed we'd be in familiar territory on clearly graded and marked national park roads. Then it was maybe 2-3 hours until we were home. But we had to get there first.
Naturally I was elated when the Great Ruaha River came into view. The gamble had paid off! I even got out of the car to observe the scene and stretch my legs. It was a beautiful scene with low water levels and fresh green grass and small marshy areas sounding the river. Waterbuck and impala grazed among herons and other waterbirds. I felt a huge sense of relief...until I realized there was no actual crossing. I could see across the river there was a spot where cars had obviously come to view the river but it looked like a place where cars would come and park and then turn around. I paced up and down the river to see if there were any obvious crossings and there weren't. We saw some faint traces of a crossing and frankly what we saw caused great distress. We could identify a spot where a car had tried to cross and then sunk down in the mud. The tracks were old and they didn't appear to continue on the other side. The river looked like it could be crossed but I worried about the mud. Then I looked at our car and saw one of the tires looked to be flat. No worries, we have two spares. I bent down to examine it and heard the hissing of air coming from the tire. Except the hissing wasn't from the tire I was examining, it was from another tire behind. Not an ideal situation.
I scoped the river and decided we'd better try for the river crossing and we better try before our tires went flat. If we were successful in crossing we still had about 50m after the river to navigate jagged rocks and sand and if one of them burst a tire it was better one that was already punctured! And to guard against getting stuck in the mud, we chose an area of the river that was quite rocky.
We held our breath and luckily we passed with ease. We reached the other side and quickly went to change our tires. Any feeling of success I had was immediately erased when I realized we had not two, but three flat tires. One had a pretty significant tear and needed to be changed, one was losing air fast, and one seemed to have a slow leak. I prioritized the two tires that were pretty low and told Ana we better get moving. If the slow leak wasn't so bad we could at least make it to the ranger post or a lodge about an hour away and fill it up before heading back to camp. We were far out of the tourist area and it was around 430pm so if our tire didn't make it or we got another flat we'd probably have to sleep in the car.
Luckily we made it back to camp with out incident at around 730pm, 12 hours after we left for what we thought would be a nice little morning game drive. The next day we saw that we actually had another slow leak, which meant we managed to have four flat tires. We weren't surprised as the road was extremely wild and rough but we counted ourselves lucky to have made it back!
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