The drive from the airfield was literally five
minutes and we were met at the entrance to the lodge by the smiling faces of
the lodge staff. It always makes you feel so important and the ice cold face cloths
to refresh you after the longish flight are always the cherry on the top.
I must say it was a bit of a bumpy flight so I
was very glad to be back on terrafirma, our pilot had been a bit of a Harry
Casual guy and had insisted on flying through every single cloud, instead of
flying around them, I think he liked the thrill of seeing how much stress the
plane and his passengers could take.
Anyway it was so nice to arrive and see the
lodge and its decor. The first thing you see is the most beautiful ice blue
swimming pool overlooking the very fast flowing Ruaha River which is just
filled with hippo. I don't know why, but we have seen and inordinate amount of
these very special creatures on this trip. Every reserve and river that we have
passed have been piled high with hippo scrums (I always thought it was a pod of
hippos but it is a scrum of hippos) and their honking at night has often been
all around our camps. I am going to get home and wonder what is missing when I
go to bed. I think we should import a few, we were wondering what kind of watchdogs
they would make? They would certainly chomp any intruders but I am pretty sure
we wouldn't have much of a garden.
The very comfortable lounge and deck of the
lodge are built up high and it is so lovely to sit up there and just look over
the pool to the river which is all of 80 meters wide with some rapids right in
front. You do see Kudu, Impala and Waterbuck grazing on the other side of the
river but as it is winter and the first rains have only just begun, the rest of
the veld is pretty brown and leafless as is typical of the African bush.
The lodge manager Garth and his wife Liz are
absolutely charming and are very seasoned and skilled lodge operators. They
know exactly how to make you totally relaxed and well cared for during your
stay.
So, we settled into the lodge experience with
ease, were shown to our very comfortable rooms that are again tented, each with
their own little plunge pools and covered decks. They are placed quite far
apart from each other so are completely secluded and private. Laying on the
front deck you can see hundreds of little finches all hopping around in the
bushes close to the villas. Great entertainment during the mandatory afternoon
rest and of course there is always a hippo or two fighting their way up or
floating down the river, maybe to get a better view of the stupid humans lying
around on our chairs.
Ernest was very keen to explore the whole area
and so the next day we set off for a full day excursion to the lakes which are
about 60 Ks from the lodge. Wow! Did we see a lot of different terrain! You go
from the dry sparse vegetation over a very rocky section, through the usual dry
river beds and then eventually come to these vast open planes with majestic
umbrella trees that almost look park like with cut lawns and very green shady
trees.
We did go to Beho Beho, the famous place where
Fredrick Courtney Selous was shot and killed in a skirmish with the Germans
during the First World War and saw his grave. After that went on to drive
around one of the very large lakes in the area called Lake Lagala. It is
surrounded by some rocky hills and the water from these surrounding hills is
what feeds the lake with runoff, we were surprised that no river actually feeds
into the lake; it is solely fed by the run off from the surrounding hills and
plains.
There are very tall Borassus palms around the
perimeter that grow up to 25 meters with the unmistakable characteristic that
the trunk thickens at the top which makes them look very top heavy. The other
clumps of palms were the Doum palm which is the multi trunked palm and gives at
least a little shade during the day as the heat is pretty intense. We were able
to tuck ourselves under some of these palms to have our long awaited lunch. We
really laughed as Steve had been calling the Tamboetie tree the Baboetie tree
and as much as we tried to correct him he kept reverting back to Baboetie. So
we figure maybe we were going to have Baboetie for lunch... Ha ha. Well low and
behold what came out of the picnic basket was the most scrumptious Baboetie.
Now we have a seer in our midst as well as a mechanic come fix it wonder boy.
Don't mess with Steve Ek se.( I say)
I must admit I was pretty impressed with a
Baboetie picnic lunch in the middle of the Selous reserve looking at a lake
with literally hundreds of hippos, crocks, tons of water birds and eat your
heart out bird enthusiasts a whole lot of those very rare African Skimmers just
sitting on the banks of the lake.
We watched a bunch of about fifteen Giraffe all
come down to drink together, quite a sighting as the most I have seen drinking
together before is about 5 or 6.
We set off again to go around the lake and to
return on another route. This reserve is so huge it is hard to get the concept
of just how much distance you can cover in a day.
On the way home we saw quite a bit of game but
the unusual things were eland and a leopard. This apparently is very rare in
the area and the first one that had been seen for a long time.
Joseph our guide was excellent; he has eyes like
a hawk and could spot anything out there long before we could even see it. He
was also an extremely good driver and cared for that vehicle like we had not
experienced ever before from a guide... No wonder their vehicles are in such
good condition. He also took very well to Ernest's teasing which you must
understand is endless.
On one of the drives Kim dropped his hat so we
had to back track a few Ks to try and find it. When we found it Ernest insisted
that Kim climb out and retrieve his own cap and then said to Joseph that as a
penalty Kim must run back to the camp. This Joseph thought was hilariously
funny and then said to Ernest that that was too much penalty for dropping a hat
because if that was the case then if we broke a glass he would have to “ kill” us, this he found even funnier
and was literally crying with laughter.
On our way home Joseph showed us a lodge that
some American had built and operated until 2009. It had been closed just after
9/11 for some reason and just left exactly like that for 5 years now. The cars
and trucks are still there, the buildings still there... Everything exactly as
it was when it was operating. Oh what a mystery, we just couldn't find out what
had happened! He had built a cable car over a nearby gorge and that was all
still there in tack like the day the lodge was close... When I say intact, it
looked like it was in tact but I wouldn't have like to put it to the test. The
gorge was all of 100 meters wide and 300 meters down and the very thick cables
still looked good but who knows if they would still hold. There was even a
carrier for a vehicle to go across. The guy who built it must have been a very
eccentric engineer and Steve was just dying to try and fire it up again to see
if it worked.... We had to drag him away before he got any mad ideas.
So we returned home after a 12 hour game drive.
I must admit it was the longest game drive we have ever done but we covered
huge ground and saw so much of the reserve which is what Ernest wanted to see.
The next day we wanted to go and see the confluence
of the two big rivers in the area, the Ruaha and the Kisigo Rivers which then turns into the Great Rufiji so off we set on another
fairly long game drive exploring yet another tiny corner of this enormous
reserve - one of the biggest in the world by the way.
The confluence is very impressive; the two
rivers come in and right in the center have formed an island which is made up
of these huge monolithic basalt rocks. You can see that in the past there have
been huge floods that have shifted and moved these rocks around with the sheer
power of flooding waters. With some pretty nifty rock jumping and hopping (avoiding
the ever present hippos of course) you can get to the middle island and can
imagine the huge force of water that flows past during the rainy season.
We spent an hour hopping around, throwing stones
in and making wishes which is something that Ernest has to do at every river he
gets to. I am sure we all wish the same thing every time so this time I thought
let's wish for something different. So this time it was that I would find a
diamond the size of an egg just lying on the rock.... Dam it never came true!
Anyway - it was getting late and having seen some nice big lion tracks on our
walk down to the river, Joseph started to herd this unruly lot back to the
vehicle for a quick sundowner and then our long trek back to the lodge.
At this point there was a huge debate... Open
the bottle of Champaign or have a G&T ... Eventually deciding on a G&T.
Joseph then kept saying he thought the Champaign was a much better idea, he had
even packed the Champaign glasses, but we decided G&T it was. At this point
he hid his face in the white cloth and confessed he had forgotten the Ginny
behind. He had so nicely packed the tonic ie the ice and the lemon but he
forgot to put in the gin ie. Shame he was actually blushing. It was so funny we nearly fell off the landie.
We had been puzzled why he kept trying to persuade us to have the Champers!
Anyway we decided that the Champaign was exactly what we wanted and had a
wonderful sundowner with terrific snacks and a glass of bubbly, but oh boy the
teasing he got lasted all the way back to the lodge.
That night we had a great dinner somewhere way
out in the bush under the wide open sky, a wonderful experience. Garth is a
real expert in the stars and gave us such an interesting talk on the universe
and where some of the constellations are in our spectacular night sky, which
you can only really appreciate when you are in the African bush.
Well I am afraid our good time eventually had to
end and it was time to pack up and get back to Dar and our cars which were
waiting for us at the Mediterraneo. We had all had such a good time being
pampered and so well looked after that it was hard to pull ourselves away. The
last morning was kind of overcast and rainy and I think we all secretly hoped
that the weather was going to get so bad that the plane couldn't come and fetch
us. We were quite deflated when our pilot arrived and introduced himself. Oh well
I suppose good things do sometimes come to an end and we had to pack our bags
and get to the air strip to start our journey home.
I think that one of the most important things
was that the rest had now given Ken a good chance to fully recover from his ordeal
and he was ready to confront our long drive down to Malawi.
We loved every minute of our adventure packed
few days and said our sad fare-wells to the staff that had become friends and
looked after us so well in those few days we had spent with them.
Signing off, till next time!
18 September - Happy Birthday Steve
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