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The Ruaha National Park is Tanzania’s second largest national park and together with its neighbouring Rungwa or Kisigo Game Reserves and other conservation areas, it forms the core of an extended ecosystem covering about 40000 m². It’s providing home to one of Tanzania’s largest elephant populations with an estimated number of 12000 individuals and hosts large herds of buffalos, giraffes, which are the most common animals here, greater kudus, elands, dik-diks, jackals and lions. The park gets very dry from June to October and due to its altitude it can get quite chilly at night. Ruaha is about 115 km from Iringa and can be reached via an unsealed road, that’s in decent condition during the dry season.
 

I visited Ruaha twice. It was the first place, where I got the “real Africa feeling” due to the park’s wilderness and remoteness. Although the area around the camps on the eastern side of the park gets full during the high season, you won’t come across any caravans of safari vehicles like in Ngorongoro or Seronera. Large sections are unexplored, and during much of the year you will meet very few other vistors. Game can really be stunning and it’s easiest to spot wildlife along the river beds. Especially elephants and lions are observed on a daily basis. A lioness, that was resting next to my tent or a pride of lions, that chased a herd of buffalos around the dining tent, made my stays at Mdonya Camp very memorable ones J !
 

The Ruaha and Mwagusi Rivers build the main sources of water in the park. The sand rivers dry up completely during the dry season. The Great Ruaha River, formally a perennial river, stops flowing during the dry season nowadays because of rice cultivation in Mbeya and Usangu areas. Rangers report, that even giraffes wade through the river during the dry season nowadays – something that would have ben impossible 10 years ago. As the  Ruaha River is the life blood of the park, the increase of agriculture in the highlands poses a big threat to this paradise!