Friday - To Ruaha!

We left Friday morning for Ruaha National Park. Because we were staying at a resort outside the Park, we had to trade our big bus in for three Land Rovers. So, we were our own little caravan driving through Iringa and onto the road to Ruaha. We got to the Sunset Mountain Resort just in time for lunch. All meals were served in an open air dinning room. Below is a picture of the dining room.The resort is built on a hill. The dining room is the first building you come to as you climb the hill. All of the rooms are further up the hill. Not the greatest layout for Mary Lou and her somewhat new hip, but she took her time and made it with no complaints.

Attached to the dining room was a wonderful balcony looking out on the savanna and on to Ruaha National Park. We spent mornings and evenings enjoying the wonderful view from the balcony (see below).

After a quick lunch, we hoped back into our land rovers and headed for Ruaha and an afternoon safari. The entrance to Ruaha was about 30 minutes from our resort. The entrance is at a crossing of the Ruaha River, the park's namesake, that is filled with sharp rocks and small waterfalls - a beautiful introduction to the park. As Jack and Judy and our guides were paying the entrance fee, the others in the group were able to spot a couple of hippos, some crocodiles, and a pair of eagles. Let the picture taking begin!

We entered the park and traveled down river in search of game. For the first 1/2 hour or so, we saw one giraffe. I was worried, thinking we've only got this safari and tomorrow, where are the animals. Turns out you have to drive though an empty (or almost empty) area to get to the good part with all the animals. The sightings started out with a solo giraffe here, a warthog there, another solo giraffe, etc. Then we went down by the river. We were just in time to see an entire herd of water buffalo come down to the river to drink - something they do only twice a day. There were easily over 200 water buffalo in the heard! An amazing site. The further down the river we went, the more animals we saw: zebra, impala, elephants, monkeys, baboons, greater kudu, etc., etc. We even saw a leopard - very rare! By then end of the day, the only big animal we hadn't see was a lion, I was disappointed, but not worried - we had another day. And then, on the way out, we took a small detour and found 8 lions, two lion couples and one lion with three lady lions (mom and kids or harem, your guess is as good as mine). It was an amazing site - what a way to finish day 1 of the safari. We left Ruaha as the sun was setting behind us and headed for our camp.

Oh, the bad news (or maybe good news for those of you reading in the US) is that I switched cameras for the safari and the other camera is harder to pull pictures off of for blog posts. Therefore, there will only be a couple of pictures from the safari on the blog. But, I took over 200 pictures in 1 1/2 days, so all you have to do is ask when I get home :).