Ruhah National Park

This is the major game park in southern Tanzania. It is a 5 hour bus ride from Iringa and the most spectacular game park in the world. We arrived in the park about 4 PM on Tuesday and the bus took us thru to the Mswugi Camp. This is thatched roof bandas located right on the river. Each banda is an A frame containing a sleeping tent with a porch on the front and a shower/toilet on the back. We had dinner in the middle of the dry river with light from about 50 kerosene lanterns spread across the tables and river bottom. The next morning we awoke to head out into the park. We are in an open jeep with three rows of seats behind the driver (Vincent) and guide (Geofrey). We toured the park for nearly 6 hours with a break for breakfast along the way. I will detail all of the animals but we were within 10 feet of most of them. An elephant mama decided that Caleb Stiles (and the rest of us) looked a little threatening to her baby and really trupeted at us and made a mock charge. We watched lion cubs challenge their mother for a bite of elephant skin (yum) and saw literally thousands of impala. We will organize the pictures but we have a couple hundred to choose from. We took an afternoon break in the heat of the day and headed out again at 4 PM for 3 hours in the jeep. We took a short break for beer (it's 5 o'clock somewhere) and then headed back for dinner on the river again. We were up again at 6 AM Thursday for another "game trip" around the south part of the park. Again we encountered hundreds of animals and stopped by to see another lion family. We had breakfast overlooking the river and some storks, baboons, impala and such and then continued on east to cross the river on a bridge over hippos. Will put on many more pictures when we get a chance. We are back at Iringa after 5 hours in a dusty bus back to Iringa.