TAN: Walking with the Animals
A walking safari has been arranged for first thing this morning. Our group will join a gentleman from New Zealand. We meet up with our guide Francis, Charles, the New Zealander and our armed ranger at 8:00 a.m. We drive about a half hour north of camp and are let off next to the river to hike back.
Our guide Francis and our armed ranger escort.
The walk is very exciting, but the game is much more wary of us on foot than in vehicles. We do manage to get fairly close to some hippos. A solitary one we come across is so annoyed with our presence that it vacates the pool it is in and tromps off in search of another. We make it back safe and sound. I really wonder how much stopping power our ranger’s breach-loading rifle has.
Some bird nests: weaverbird on the left and hamerkop on the right. The hamerkop nest is enclosed with a small entrance on the underside.
This hippo was so incensed by our presence that it moved to another pool. A pair of Kudu.
Gabriel with a praying mantis. Always read the warning signs before you leave for a walking safari.
We get a bit more work in before we head over for lunch, where we are informed that Chantal and I should be ready to depart for the airstrip at 2:00, a half hour ahead of what we told previously. We scramble to get our gear pared down to the essentials so that it does not weigh any more than absolutely necessary. The flight is completely full with a Danish couple, Erik and Inge, Graham, an English gentleman who is to write an article about Katavi for the Foxes, along with Chantal and I. We are just finishing the packing when the car arrives with Graham. We bid farewell to Gabriel and Julie, whom we will meet up with again at Mufindi two days hence.
We bid farewell to our companions for the first time on the trip.
The trip tot the airfield takes an hour. We see the plane come in and we arrive just before Peter starts filling it with fuel. He needs enough to get all the way to Katavi and back. Takeoff is at 3:30 p.m. sharp. We are a bit heavy so Peter has to make a wide circle for five minutes before heading off in the right direction at the proper altitude. The view from the air is quite different. The countryside lined is scarred with countless game trails. The afternoon air is very rough and combined with a hot and stuffy cabin doesn’t make for pleasant flight. I find a semi-reclined position that is conducive to napping and try to relax. Chantal doesn’t fare as well and eventually succumbs to her nausea. Throughout the entire flight Erik reads a book. A strong tail wind hastens our journey and we touch down in Katavi an hour and forty-five minutes later.
Peter Fox refueling the plane. The fuel pump is powered by the truck’s battery. Game trails scarring the landscape.
The “black cotton soil” is extremely treacherous when wet and just a plain nuisance when it is not. Brush is placed around the tires in an attempt to keep the wildlife from nibbling on them,
Jennifer from Ruaha is waiting by the airstrip with a safari vehicle to take us to the camp a mere fifteen minutes away. The camp is situated at the edge of “Lake” Iku which at the moment is a vast plain of brown grass. We get settled into our cabins and regroup for drinks and us to shoot the camp before the sun goes down. We find out that the camps power inverted blew out and that there is no electricity to be had. This is both an annoyance as we could have left the lighting kit behind and a cause of anxiety as we cannot charge any of our batteries and consequently have to be very conservative with the use of our electronics.
The interior of the well fitted tents and the dining tent.
Sunset over “Lake” Iku.
The group sits down to a lovely candlelight dinner during the course of which, Peter and Graham regale us with tales of Tanzania.