18.Ruaha National Park, Tanzania - 12 October to 19 October 2009

On Monday 12 October, the border crossing into Tanzania was surprisingly quick and easy, and on the drive north to Mbeya we passed through the Southern Highlands, a hilly, green, tropical landscape of rich volcanic soil with tea and banana plantations. This was our introduction to Tanzania, and the cool mountain air was a nice change after hot and humid Lake Malawi.

Utengule Coffee Lodge is not far out of Mbeya, and Rift Valley Coffee is grown on the Utengule Coffee Estate. Needless to say we enjoyed a couple of real espressos while we were there, as well as buying a fairly large tin of ground coffee to take with us. The Dutch couple we had met at Luawa Forest Lodge in Malawi were also camping there so it was fun to have their company again.

A South African couple whom we met at Chitimba had told us how good the African djiko is for cooking. It uses charcoal very efficiently and is very handy when a campfire is not possible. After trying at the markets in Mbeya we eventually found a djiko at the amazing markets in Iringa, where the food market alone is under a massive shelter, let alone the rest of the market where you can wander up and down between the stalls and get lost or run over by taxis, trucks, buses weaving their way through the throng of people. The food market had masses of dried or smoked fish, red meat, all manner of fruit and vegetables, including a fellow sitting shelling peas onto a huge pea mound. We loved it!! And we were pleased to have our little djiko. They come in all sizes and are hand-made. We had seen them as we drove through Malawi, but hadn't taken much notice of them. We now realise that at Russell's Place in Mozambique, the hot water for showers was even heated in a drum on a djiko and was placed next to a drum of cold water which you mixed in a long handled beaker and poured over yourself. Actually not too bad.

Not far out of Iringa we camped at The Old Farm House, Kisolanza Farm - a fabulously run camp site with the most amazing candle-lit restaurant, with beautiful meals using all home-grown vegetables and meat. It's incredible the surprises that await you as you travel through Africa! The next day we also bought a huge basket of fresh vegetables to take with us. Here we met a wonderful couple about our age from the UK who had already travelled through France and Spain and across to Morocco, and down the west coast of Africa, through such places as Nigeria and both the Congo's. They were fantastic to chat to, and really inspiring, and made our trip seem positively pedestrian.

We met up with them again when we were camped outside Ruaha National Park. The Dutch fellow we met at Kunene River in Namibia had told us about Tandala, a tented camp outside Ruaha. He had suggested we stay there because dinner was an amazing experience with the elephants from the park coming in to water at dusk, just near the restaurant. We decided not to stay there because we had found a suitable campsite at Chogela, which was much more suited to our budget, but the Tandala owner was more than happy for us to have dinner there. We arranged to meet the UK couple there after we'd had our afternoon game drive in the Park, and we had a wonderful meal with them, the tables set up under the stars, and we did see the elephants watering at dusk while we had a sundowner.

Ruaha National Park is one of the best we've visited, despite the 120km rough road to get there. During the 24 hour permit we went on an afternoon drive, followed by a morning drive the next day, and saw lionesses in large numbers and they were very close which was hugely exciting, as were the elephants and buffalo. And there was a constant view of wildlife as you drove along the Great Ruaha River which borders the park. The landscape was also the most scenic we had seen in a National Park, and seemed typically African with hills and savannah, dotted with magnificent baobab trees, and of course the river flowing through.

The morning we left Chogela campsite, we had our second flat tyre which was the one we had repaired in Upington, South Africa, but we had a very amiable worker who helped change the tyre, which was rather an exercise as we decided to put the two new spares on the front. He only spoke Swahili, and laughed the whole time and was so excited with all the gear that came out of the car - air compressor, exhaust air jack, ratchet for the wheel nuts etc, and he was so eager to have a go himself. He really was a great help and a delight.

A beautiful drive from Uringa, past the Udzungwa Mountains NP, across the Great Ruaha River downstream and then the road follows the river through what appears to be a "baobab forest". We stayed in Mikumi that night in the grounds of a motel which was quite comfortable and the next day we would drive to Dar Es Salaam.