Trip to Selous and Ruaha , Adansonia paranoia !

[africawild]

Getting ready to sit at my desk and start writing a trip report, I owe it to Safaritalk .

Taken in Selous three weeks ago.

 

There will be more pictures than words, write in English is not my thing.

 

Paco

[africapurohit]

@@africawild I look forward to more pictures and words. I think the vervet may need some more cushions.

Edited November 23, 2013 by africapurohit

[madaboutcheetah]

Groovy!!! Can hardly wait!

[africawild]

After 9 consecutive years visiting Africa, these 2 and half years of absence have been difficult for me .

Do not get me wrong, I've been happy at home but my head is always full of African memories and i wanted to go back badly.

Finally, three weeks ago we ( me and my wife ) had the opportunity to return and enjoy again nature at its best .

Choosing a destination is not an easy task , you know that . Many places i will like to go back ( Serengeti , Meru , Okavango , South Luangwa, The Namib .....) and many i will love to visit for the first time ( Kafue , Katavi , Ruaha , Mana ,Laikipia , .......) Safaritalk´s fault!!!

We only had 10 days available for this trip and i wanted to be 8 full days and nights in the bush so i shorted to 2 option , Hwange and Mana or Selous and Ruaha .

At the end , international connections where better for the second option so i think Zimbabwe will be the next , hopefully next year.

The decision was made so we picked 3 nights in Selous and 5 in Ruaha.

Preparing everything for our come back on safari was easy and fast , the only problem was the weight of my backpack , 12 kilos ( 2 cameras ; rented D4 , D300 , 3 lenses ; 24-120 , 70-200 and 200-400 , plus 1,4 coverter ) and another 5 kilos with 2 8x42 binos , Manfrotto Super Clamp,ball head , East Africa Birds Field Guide , Laptop .....

Our total luggage came to 34 kilos , not that bad for the 15 pp kilos allow by flying companies .

At the end we where not asked to weight our luggage at all ( Turkish Airlines has 8 kg hand luggage ) so there was no problem there . We used Coastal and SafariAirlink for internal flights.

First day of Novemver , after two flights of 4 and 7 hours, we landed in Dar and were transfer to the domestic terminal by a Coastal member .

While waiting there for the flight we had our first African sunrise in 2 years and later i spent some time birding , just house sparrows , some sunbirds ,crows and mosque swallows.

Then the flight to Selous .

A few shots from above ....

The Rufiji River

Selous looked green and had lots of water.

And some open areas

Some giraffes under the shade , there are many in Selous , but only North of the Rufiji river , we where told.

Paco

[twaffle]

I just love your photography Paco, can't wait for more.

[JohnR]

Lovely pin-sharp images.

[Safaridude]

Wow. Brilliant aerial photos to start!

[Soukous]

So far so good Paco, wonderfully crisp photos. Can't wait until you get on the ground.

[AKR1]

Great beginning. The aerial shots are always difficult to capture perfectly, but you nailed it. Looking forward to more.

[Sangeeta]

What a great start with that vervet, Paco!! It's indeed been a while since we were treated to your photos - looking forward to seeing the Selous and Ruaha through your lens.

[africawild]

Thank you all !!

 

We landed in Selous and our guide was waiting for us . In just five minutes we were in camp with 2 other couples.

 

Our camp in Selous was Siwandu . My first choice was Lake Manze but due to our late reservation it was not available , same with Impala Camp. We asked for Beho Beho but it is out of our budget , too bad after the good comments i had heard about their guiding .

 

Siwandu is a very nice camp in an wonderful place but is not the camp style of my taste . I specially don´t like their late start in the morning . My TA asked their reservation personal if it was possible to have early starts and they said was not a problem but when i told the manager about our request they said they never heard about it and the only way to change things was to convince the rest of the guest in our vehicle.

Everything turned out well because they all agreed but most important they were excellent company and we had a great time sharing the experience with them.

 

They offer a boat safari before lunch but we were very tired so decided to rest in our tent.

 

We had a great view of the lake from our veranda and we had the chance to see many animals around .

 

Some pictures from our tent during siesta time

 

 

Sparrow weavers were nesting in a tree beside the tent

 

 

But of course many other birds visit the trees around

 

 

 

 

The views from our tent !

 

 

 

 

 

And some big visitors , like this hippo that wanted to be a rhino and one second later a unicorn

 

!!

 

 

 

Next i will start to cover some drives but that will be tomorrow , is midnight in Spain

 

Paco

 

 

 

 

 

[SafariChick]

beautiful photos and excited to read more of your report. So funny about the hippo who is a rhino or unicorn!

[TonyQ]

Beautiful bird pictures - a great start and looking forward to more!

[africawild]

Game drives in this part of Selous take place around the several oxbow lakes North of the Rufiji river so we mostly drove around Siwandu , Manze and Nzerakera every day .

There are a few more open áreas to the North and also towards the Beho Beho hills were the lanscape and wildlife was a bit different .

 

The first afternoon we did not go far , basically we drove around lake Nzerakera wich is were Siwandu Camp is located .

 

 

Giraffes are very common and prolific in Selous , you probably find one every time you turn on a curve .I've always found amazing their ability to eat the leaves of the acacias

 

¡ look at the size of those thorns !

 

 

 

 

 

But also lions find them often!

 

 

 

 

 

There was a impala baby boom i had not seen before in my previous trips , there were impala rams everywhere !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bateleurs at 200 and 550 mm !!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selous was very green , sign of the good rains of the previous week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our guide was a nice guy but you could tell he worked under the philosophy of the camp, he was more concerned about the sunset spot than finding something interesting. One guy in the vehicle pointed out some vultures flying close and we suggested to go take a look .

 

 

 

 

There were some impala remains under a tree but the guide said there was nothing around.

When we were about to leave ( sundown time ) i spotted this male lion out in the open .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The landscape around the lakes is unique , very beautiful .

 

 

 

 

 

Then sunset , our first one of the trip and the last shots of the day . Nice afternoon overall with no other vehicle around !!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paco

[graceland]

Beautiful pics Paco.....Looking forward to more!

[CapitanBurton]

Beautiful pictures Paco! I was in the Seleous last years and great memories come to my mind!

[madaboutcheetah]

Stunning!!! Looks like the week for juvenile Batleur's on safaritalk ......... I need to get to Southern Tanzania one day!

[TonyQ]

Beautiful impala!

[Soukous]

Wonderfully clear photos, wish I was there now.

[Treepol]

Really enjoying the TR and photos, thanks for sharing.

 

The photo of the impala lamb with the alert ears and the female conveys a message of 'strange new world' to me. The aerial shots at the beginning of the report are so interesting as they show a speckled, green Selous and the lazy winding river - what a magical land.

 

Looking forward to more...

 

 

[Maki]

@@africawild - it must be a great feeling to be back in africa after 2,5 years - am jealous of the aerial shots, and the other pictures are great as well.

I know it is not easy writing in another language, but you're doing great! Looking forward to more.

[Game Warden]

There is one language here and that is Safaritalk

[Atravelynn]

Paco, you always do such interesting trips with your family. Great set of photos on page 1. Did you notice you got a hippo-unicorn, due to the stick behind its head? The hippos in the sunset are wonderful. I had to look up Adansonia.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Atravelynn

[penolva]

Wonderful photographs. What camera do you use? Pen

[africawild]

Thank you all again !!

 

Lynn , you will see why the Adansonia paranoia when i get to the Ruaha part .

 

Pen , i use Nikon gear , here is a shot with most of the equipment i took in this trip .

 

My camera is a D300 but for this trip i rented a D4 , i wanted to try i full frame camera , great experience overall.

 

 

 

 

 

Paco