BEST TIME TO VISIT RUAHA FOR A SOUTHERN TANZANIA SAFARI

Ruaha National Park is accessible all year round, with most visitors arriving to adventurously tour East Africa in the dry season from June to October, when game congregates around water sources and is easy to spot wildlife in the dry, golden landscape. Sandy river beds focus spectacular concentrations of diverse mammals: buffalo and elephants by the hundred, baboons and antelopes by the dozen, lions by tens and smaller mammals by ones and twos.

The dry season is also the most popular time to safari in the wilds of Tanzania with AfricanMecca, when sun shines all day and rain is rare. The weather is cooler and less humid than in the rains, and mosquitoes are less in evidence.



Although this is peak season, you will rarely see another jeep as the few available camps and lodges are widely spaced, and Ruaha is still largely undiscovered, a secret gem to be jealously guarded by the few who know and appreciate the joys of isolation in an unspoiled paradise. An outback expedition in Ruaha may be dusty and dry in this season, but a cooling drink and a bush shower or a dip in a swimming pool back at camp is all the more welcome.

By November, temperatures build and evening lightning flashes pastel-colored caverns in gathering cloud. You can savor the excitement of standing in the open as rain sweeps towards you across the savannah, soaking you in grateful coolness so that you share the almost hysterical relief of the staff who live here, and the burgeoning life force renewing itself in plants and animals.



The wet season runs from November to May when game is more widely dispersed, dry sand rivers become torrents and arid miombo woodland becomes jade green and lush. A carpet of spring flowers flares into rainbows, butterflies and birds dazzle the eye and the breeding season for most ungulates and predators afford wonderful shots of new life.

Even the elephant engage in courtship, the male gently head-butting his mate and curling an affectionate trunk across her shoulders. Many connoisseurs of bush travel in Africa consider this the best time, appreciating the textures and scents of new growth after months of aridity. But only a few avid bird watchers visit during the heavy rains in April and May when most Ruaha accommodations are closed.

Straddling the migration routes of avian populations from all four points of the compass, over 570 species have been recorded in Ruaha since it was expanded in 2008 to include the Usungu wetlands (view map). This is the least cost time to travel Tanzania, as well as the time when you will be most isolated in soul refreshing wilderness.