september-2018

32 / TRAVEL / Tanzania
TRAVEL / 33
Left: Chada Katavi,
Katavi National Park
(top and bottom left);
Making bread in the
kitchen
Jabali Ridge, Ruaha
National Park
“We end our walk with a bush breakfast: a table laid
in the spreading shade of an umbrella acacia tree,
piping-hot coffee and eggs and bacon”
Kilimanjaro International
Airport
Arriving on Kenya Airways, you’ll fly
into Kilimanjaro International Airport,
which is situated neatly between
the two mountains that dominate
the northern border of Tanzania:
Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru Peak.
Arusha is a small town in the shade
of Meru, about an hour’s drive from
the airport. It offers lots in terms of
accommodation. Katambuga House,
an elegant and stylish six-room
lodge set in expansive grounds, is on
the west side of town, near Arusha
Airport. Rivertrees, a charming
country estate that was once an old
coffee farm, is to the east of Arusha.
WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
The following dawn, I head out on a bush walk feeling
reassured because I’m accompanied again by Rajabu and
hawk-eyed Maripet; if the man can see a chameleon in a
shrub at night, he should be able to see something more
intimidating from kilometres away. We trek single file through
just-after-the-rains long grass, flattened in places by large
game such as buffalos and elephants. Rajabu points out telltale
signs in the dirt where an ostrich, wings spread, has
enjoyed a dust bath, and sprigs of wild basil, which local
people use to cure stomach ailments (and which the Maasai
smoke when they run out of tobacco, says Maripet with a
grin). Bush walking is another wild experience that isn’t
available everywhere, or offered by everybody, and in the right,
responsible hands, it’s an extraordinary up-close-and-personal
encounter as untamed Africa spills all around you. We end
our walk with a bush breakfast: a table laid in the spreading
shade of an umbrella acacia tree, piping-hot coffee and eggs
and bacon.
As we head home, it occurs to me that so often, in their
haste to tick off the Big Five, visitors fail to notice the dozens
of smaller wild things: the plover protecting her roadside nest
by feigning a broken wing to distract predators, or a gaggle of
mongooses surveying the bush with comical curiosity from the
elevated position of an anthill. And just as guests to Tanzania
need to notice the small game, they also need to consider the
smaller, often overlooked game parks: Tarangire in the north,
Ruaha in the centre and Katavi in the west. It’s been said that
Katavi has as many visitors in a year as Ngorongoro Crater
has in a day, so a great many people are missing out.
➔
Plan your trip
Kenya Airways flies daily from Nairobi’s Jomo
Kenyatta International Airport to Dar es Salaam
International and Kilimanjaro Airport, Tanzania.
Eliza Powell (top and bottom right), Stocksy
Eliza Powell
credit xxxxx