We found a night guard, aka visiting Cat sitter for Lily, and took off on a 5 day visit to Mikumi National Park last week. Our first African Safari! We were worried that it had started to rain a bit, as rainy season is approaching, and that maybe the animals would start to scatter more because they wouldn’t all need to go to the few water sources available.
We piled on to a “luxury” bus, and drove for 7 hours westward to the interior of Africa. A 7 hour bus ride across hundreds of kilometers, all for $8. Granted the air conditioning was broken, and the bus broke down for an hour…but at least we didn’t have to do the driving and have that expense. It was like being in a grocwey store though, whenever we stopped, with people sticking their wares up to our noses through the windows, hoping we would buy something. We tried sugarcane, and corn, and potatoes chips and other yummy snacks!
It didn’t take long to start spotting animals once we got within a few miles of the park. For miles before the park entrance we started seeing impallas and springboks on the side of the road. We even saw a pair of giraffes just outside the gates!
Upon arrival at the park, we were met by a prearranged driver to start our Safari right away. He had heard there were some lions being spotted and it was prime lion viewing time, late afternoon, so we wizzed off to see them. After about 20 minutes of driving and looking through binoculars for them, spotting NO other wildlife(a good sign that predators are around), our guide managed to find two. They were mating. We watched for almost an hour. Every 15 or 20 minutes, the sleeping cats would start to roll around, stand up, and look around, and then the lady would invite the male over for some nookie. This would only last for a minute before she would growl and moan and kick him off. Then back to sleep for a little bit before it would start all over again. Patrick is putting a video together, and has some great mating shots. Stay tuned to his YouTube channel if you likethese few photos he let me put up!
Here is my original post to Facebook in case you missed it…
What did we see?
-Four different Lion couples trying to mate
-Warthogs, with babies, groups, individual ones with their funny long faces.
-mongooses of various varieties
-Hippos with their lazy daytime sleeping in the water with a few songs and bubbles most of the day, but overall very sedentary. They get up at night to go eat grass…so during the day, they are sort of the guaranteed thing to see on Safari there. We were even allowed to get out of the Jeep to see them..the only place in the park where we were allowed out for safety concerns.
-Jackals. They hunt in pairs…we watched the two of them work in getting a guinea fowl. But they missed…we sort of interrupted them I guess. Nice looking dogs ? Smaller than I thought
-Baboons..lots of them
-Velvet monkeys and other unindetified monkeys that look like the silver leaf monkeys in Asia.
-Lots of Birds
-Lots of vultures including 50 of them feeding on a water buffalo
-Herd of 500+ Water buffalo at watering hole, wallowing in water and mud
-some kind of HUGE stork that our guide only knew the Swahili name for but it was impressive
-Tsetsy flies by the hundreds, 3 of which bit me.
Also for anyone who wants to make reservations at the hotel which seems nearly impossible to find online, Ludovic,the man at the Tourist Board Center in Mikumi’s number is 0755067122 or e-mail is ludovic.saronga@yahoo. com. He is a helpful guy all the way around.
Ludovic managed to score some accommodations inside of the park ahead of time for us that didn’t totally break the bank…$125 per night including all meals for the two of us. It is a place called Mikumi Park Cottages or Mikumi Park Bandas. They are run by the National Park. And while the rooms have just been refurbished, other parts of the property are a little bit run down. But a great location 4 kilometers in to the park, with wild animals all around.
We always love to stay inside of the national parks in various countries if we possibly can. Wildlife comes out at night which you miss during the day if you are staying outside. Some of our most enjoyable times in National Parks are inside…after the tours! It was no exception in this park. We enjoyed sitting in the (rundown) open air bar at the hotel, watching the zebras and giraffes as the bright red African sun went down that evening! Baboons jumped around the roof, and some colorful birds Posed for photos. It was a joyous first evening, and a tasty dinner. We were warned early on to be aware coming out of our cabin door, or out of the restaurant, as elephants or other animals could very well surprise us. They suggested armed guards coming from the bar back to our rooms at night but we never stayed out much past nightfall. We did bring our nighscope with us, but we didn’t see much with it except one unidentified animal behind a tree and we never ventured over to find out what it was. There is some common sense here, and it’s not like in the USA where there are fences where you should not go.
The next day, we enjoyed an early start and had a full day Safari. Late morning, we had the most amazing sitings. We had pulled up to a water hole to see some impallas drinking water. Soon a family of elephants came to have a sip too, but the baby could not reach down to the water for a drink so they soon left. Then another family of elephants came and took baths and drank. Then a herd of wildebeasts, and then 500+ water buffalos. Then some warthogs. Then hundreds of zebras, then some elans, and some giraffe, and then more families of elephants. Vulture feed on a dead buffalo. Soon our Jeep was surrounded by animals of every kind, with great action in every direction. It was just like the movies. Even our guide was surprised at the numbers of animals that had gathered and was excitedly filming!
Later that afternoon we got to watch a pair of hunting jackals try to get some Guinea fowls. I think we distracted them too much and they never got their dinner. But we got great photos and videos of them, up close and personal.
All day long we had animals, some far, some near, all so beautiful. It’s a day I willl never forget!
Unfortunately, Patrick has lost his GoPro on the way to the park, and then struggled with an overloaded camera with movies and photos, and overwritten SD cards, and drained batteries. We just now, a week later after a lot of work, managed to recover a good percentage of his videos and photos. He has some incredible shots. Some of his videos are a bit shaky but hopefully some image stabilization software will help. He sure did miss his GoPro with image stabilization built in to it!
That evening, I think we had the best sundowners that we ever had. The sky was so red. The birds were singing, the country music playing softly in the background. A nice cold Savannah while watching vultures, giraffes, impallas, and zebras graze as the sun melted. It was a magical evening and another delicious dinner. That night I heard something outside but I didn’t dare go outside. I think it was elephants.
The next morning…our last safari..our driver was determined to find us a leopard in a tree. We found another two pairs of mating lions and got some great video of them, as well as some zebras wildly mating! We drove probably 100 kilometers in to a remote part of the park hoping to find leopards. Instead…we got attacked by tetse flies? I mean hundreds swarmed down on our Jeep, which was a more open kind today due to mechanical issues with the other one, and they are vicious bugs! Like horseflies but with a vengeance! And so silent. And they know where you can’t see them, and aim right for those locations! Our driver drove so fast to escape them, while Patrick stood up swatting them with his hat to detach them from where they clung to the car, and outrun them. I sat in my seatbelt, trying to grab Patrick from falling out of the Jeep, and prevent all of us from getting bitten. I’m slapping myself, the driver, Patrick repeatedly! I think the only person who ended up bitten was me. I got 3 good nips! They land and then I’m ediately sting you then start to draw blood seconds later. Only one got my blood. I hope he’s not an infected one! African Sleeping Sickness…the technical name is Trypanosomiasis sounds like something I would NOT like to catch! For at least 15 minutes we drove at about 100 miles an hour on bumpy dirt roads trying to outrun them, somapparently the driver guide felt the same way!
Needless to say we didnt find any leopards, as we sped past everything! But nonetheless, we felt so happy to have had so much fun, and have seen so many animals!
The Safari was over , and we went to town to eat lunch since the lack of variety at the lodge was getting a little old. We enjoyed a nice lunch at the VETA school…a community trade school where our friend works. They did not have accomodations available, so we found a $12 room at the Kilamanjaro Hotel next door. We had no electricity for our entire stay there except the 2 hours they ran the generator, but the price was right, and it was near to the bus for our next morning departure.
Mikumi was a great experience! It was expensive though, and although just about the closest park to Dar, it was still a long ways away! I don’t know how one could enjoy it with the daytours that are offered! We were fairly thrifty but still managed to spend more than $700 in less than 5 days! We are just getting warmed up though! We both love animals, and we hope to go on many more safaris if we can manage the finances of it all. You just say the word “Safari” here, the prices for everything increases tenfold. It will be a challenge to get to Serenghetti and Ngorongoro Crater for a price we can afford, but we are gonna try!
Warch for Patrick’s Video…it’s gonna be so beautiful!
For now, he has let me post some of the photos…just to give you an idea…