Tour : Tanzania

Having travelled a few times to her neighbour, Kenya, I was especially intrigued with what I might find in Tanzania. The narrative for the two countries ito travel and wild spaces reads quite differently. My preconception of both was based on a combination of fantasy I created from romantic settings in movies and novels early in life, articles read more recently as research for travel and consultation with guides in the wildlife field. On my trips to Kenya, I had wanted to find the dream world I had imagined would complete me somehow.

I found the world is the dream you make it.

I was addicted from my first sight of the big open plains of the mara. It is so vast and mystical. I found rather, that no place will fill what you are searching for until you mould into one with its ways, and its rhythms become yours. I found myself really needing the rhythms of the mara at the time of the trips I did.

So my intrigue with Tanzania was a more mature attitude, if you like, of what is she going to teach me …

Southern Tanzania

Nyerere national park

Sand Rivers Selous lodge by Nomad

Wild. Big and wild. Big, wild and tropical, like island life in the bush.

Our selected camp was on the Rufiji river. I love the power of a river. It informs my mind that we are only in existence because someone more powerful than us lets us be.

I chose to visit in the summer so that I could see the land in its full glory.

The most enriching art history one can experience can be found in this park, in a baobab trunk that you can only stretch your arms one quarter of the way around. In the petrified wood found amongst the sandstone. In the old pathways long forgotten by the river and the depths of the summer growth, impenetrable without and elephant body or a machete. Most evident of the history of this part of Africa, 52000 m2, is the depth of life that surrounds you. The insect life makes you wonder what cave men did for bug repellent or fly nets?

We were treated to a butterfly opera. All the characters you would expect to see. The most beautiful being the sword tails in their clusters, mud pooling. We liked to make full use of the river from our camp as it was very easily accessible. Hoping on a boat and heading 15km or so upriver to a beautiful gorge displaying its towering chestnut trees. Every kilometer claimed by a fish eagle, indicating there was an abundance of fish to be eaten.

Taking the boat upriver once is of course never enough. Time is never enough, I find, for everything to be taken in, and you are spent at the end of the day for trying to absorb it.

Over a few trips we discovered our favour in witnessing the swordtail soiré and that, like a game drive, no two boat trips are the same. I could have added a few weeks and hung around on the river a lot longer. The bird life was incredible, everyone busing themselves with nesting, building, feeding, calling and fishing. Beautiful giant herons, a pels fishing owl, palmnut vultures, purple turacos, Narina trogan and everything weaving in between.

The flip side to the abundance of butterflies was the feeding frenzy the bee eaters engaged in. They took to following our vehicle as we drove, to catch whatever flew up as we drove along. If you let yourself for a moment, you could imagine they were holding you on a magic carpet and flying you through a tropical wonderland of palms and lakes since the flight pattern that they follow, especially in numbers following a vehicle, felt like a rolling wave just as if you were riding the wind with them.

I lost myself as I always do in the tree canopies and found a new realm of imagination opened by the duma palms across the landscape.

The lakes were inhabited by a lot of crocodiles and hippo. These lakes added a stunning backdrop for herds of animals coming to drink. They also provided amazing stages for watching animal behavior. We watched around 25 crocodiles feeding on a hippo carcass with savage order. They definitely have a social structure that applied to who fed where and for how long. I also found it very interesting to see, eventually see (to my guide, Dan’s later amusement) these same crocodile closely piled on top of each other on the far side of the bank in a kind of family vibe. Just thinking about this now, as I write, I will look into the social structure of the crocodile world a little further I think.

On and evening at the lakeside, I observed an amusing relationship between a grey heron and a pod of hippo. An inspiration for a children’s wildlife story perhaps, to bring this amazing wild space that is Nyerere national park to life for the future generations. A book in Swahili and English…??

After travelling on a fair number of private safaris with Oryx, they have come to expect the odd challenging request on my itinerary as I dream up my adventures. The reality is sometimes a little out of reach, but I dream anyway. On this trip, I asked if it was possible to arrange a flight over the Nyerere park! This turned out to not be possible as scenic flights are banned due to poaching prevention practices in place. It is a massive park and having gone all the way down south, I was hoping to see as much as possible, it turned out, on the morning we left, feeling the dread of leaving, we boarded the plane on the rich red soil runway. our pilot informed us that we would be flying east / south east all the way along the Rufiji river to the sea… it was incredible to see this wilderness from the sky and follow the river to its mouth, across the Indian ocean to Mafia island, just happened to be our stop on the way to Lusaka!

I loved the Tanzanian people. They are busy and hardworking and full of fun. I could not survive without a sense of humour and I felt very at home with this nation, albeit they are actually made up of 127 different tribes, they feel like one happy family.

The Sand River Selous lodge, by Nomad Tanzania is a most enriching place to visit. Oryx photo tours have got to know what I am about in a very short time and choose my bush homes perfectly. I experienced a very positive and committed Nomad team that has left me looking for where else I can go to grow their reach and work in the world.

Conservation and looking after our planet involves many players. I hope to fulfill my part to be a conscious contributor to this cause by supporting those who have invested their lives in managing the wildlife resources on our planet responsibly.

Southern Serengeti plains and Ndutu.

I feel like this destination and park is very under rated. I had low expectations for some reason. I think perhaps because so much is made of the one aspect of the tree climbing lions, which are exceptionally unique to see, but there was a much deeper richness to this wilderness to me.

We stayed in a first-class migration camp of Olakira (shining star) by Alisia.

Set in the acacia thickets on a rise above lake Masek, adjacent to Lake Ndutu.

I had chosen to travel to Ndutu at this time of year to see the herds of plains game with their young, beginning their migration back north. I was not disappointed. It seemed an orderly almost automated occurrence whereby mothers and young followed an ingrained about turn once giving birth and feeding in Ndutu. Some would cross Ndutu lake as a matter of ‘this is just what we do’, while they could traverse around the edge.

In the urgency to meet natures call to stay as a group for survival, the young are often separated from their mothers and become distressed. Little ones calling to their Moms and vica versa is a common sound, yet fascinating that out of the hundreds of thousands of wildebeest, they can and do reunite. Then, some are also lost. Lost to their herd but gains for the wildlife they sustain like cheetah siblings we witnessed with a small calf.

And beyond this, the spectacle of countless wildebeest and zebra stretched across the plains at the very southern tip of the Serengeti and the intensity of witnessing something you can’t totally grasp or explain, this wilderness is home to so much more.

There are two beautiful marsh areas, dryer in this season but what they must bloom into tin the wet season, I can only imagine. They hold a rich green texture of criss-cross thatch grass, out of which a large male lion emerges. There are small bodies of water, still and flat like glass, reflecting the monochrome stripes of a zebra trotting through. Acacia woodlands and short grass surround the depressions that make up these marshes. A landscape that draws you immediately into its temper.

Reluctantly you leave the marsh, longing to come back before you have left it really.

And then the lakes, well, the lakes are just simply a spectacle on their own.

After passing them at all times of day, we chose to sit by the lakeside early one morning before our days adventures. I was more than content watching flocks of flamingoes, lesser and greater, wade for crustaceans and algae in the soda lake but it turned into a magical mix of hot air balloons floating just above thousands of airborne flamingoes with a the sun perfectly rising and tinting everything with its warmth…if I was not engrossed in capturing it on camera, I may have believed I was on my way to heaven.

How do I described the value of a place that is not tropical but not dry or baron, it is abundant but harsh, inviting but carry’s a reality of a wild warning. This is just the wild spaces of it. The hospitality and attention to detail by Asilia’s team is dreamy. It crossed my mind that they have a client service boot camp every quarter perhaps.. these guys don’t miss a beat and nothing is too much…if only I were more fussy.. I think I may have bored them a little in my plainness. Oryx, the underlying connector, makes the whole experience seamless.

Where to next…. There will always be a next, just wait and see.