Ruaha National Park

Our trip to Ruaha National Park was amazing and something that I will never forget. I wasn’t expecting to see much more than we saw driving through Mikumi, but boy was I wrong. Multiple people told us that seeing lions around this time of year, and in Ruaha in general, is rare. However, not even 5 minutes after entering the park we saw a lion! I was so happy! Lions are one of my favorite animals and I really was hoping we would see one.

Continuing on in the park, after seeing the lion, I was hoping that we would get to see some more animals that we hadn’t seen like hippos and crocodiles. Sure enough, we came upon a huge river and I said “ This looks like a nice home for hippos and crocodiles” We stopped and were able to get out and walk across a bridge over the river. There was only one crocodile that we could see laying on a rock, but there were a lot of hippos!

After a short time, we continued on our way. We came across a really scary rope bridge that we were able to walk across. It seemed fine at first, but as you went across it the gaps in the rope on the side started to get bigger and in some places it was just gone completely!

It was looking like it was going to rain shortly after that and was beginning to get dark. We continued our journey though in hopes of seeing more animals. We came across some giraffes that were in the way of the path of the car and we were able to get quite close to them. Giraffes are very interesting creatures. They are so tall and it is really cool to see them running. Seeing the animals in their natural habitats is just such an amazing experience that is so much better than seeing them at the zoo.

As we ended the day, we headed to our cottages in the park. From the backdoor of my room, you could see elephants down by the river. We ate dinner in the restaurant there, and then went to head back to our rooms. However, when we went to leave we were stopped. We had to be escorted back by a man with a gun and flashlight just in case we were to run into any animals! I hadn’t even thought of that. At some point during the early morning, an elephant actually walked right through the cottage sight, although I did not personally see it.

We began our second day of safari bright and early! Our driver, Peter, had already known where a large family of elephants was at, so we headed there. We stopped the car and watched the elephants for a couple of minutes. A few of the younger elephants were playing with each other’s trunks.

We continued on our way in hopes of finding a male lion. We came across a lot of rocks that reminded me of the Lion King and looked like a perfect home for lions. We didn’t see any lions here though.

We made our way back to the large family of elephants. They were all crossing the path in front of us, so Peter stopped the car. Apparently we didn’t stop far enough away though. After majority of the elephants crossed, a mother elephant and it’s baby began to cross. We were all in awe over how small the baby was. The mother was not happy with us though. She came right up to our car. We had to be very quiet and were instructed not to make any noise. We couldn’t even take a picture. It was very scary because elephants are some of the most dangerous animals. However, after just staring at us for a few seconds, she continued on her way.

 We ended up coming across another family of elephants that also had a lot of babies.

Elephants truly are such amazing creatures. After this safari, they have definitely become possibly my favorite animal. They are so large and just amazing to watch. It’s so neat how they use their trunks. A lot of times it seemed like they were even waving at us.

We even got to see some elephants bathing in the river

Although we didn’t see any more lions on our trip, we did see a lot more giraffes, zebras, a baby crocodile, a fish eagle, impala, and yellow baboons.