🐆 Arrive in Ruaha
Rhaua National Park is the second largest park in Tanzania.
The small plane took us to an airstrip in Ruaha, where we were met by our private driver. We did a slow, meandering game drive through the park, where we, again, saw animals everywhere, including our first leopard sighting.
🏨 Ikuka Camp
Ikuka camp was our home for the next 4 nights. Unbelievable. The camp is all open-air, palapa-roofed wooden lodges. Each had a living room with leather couches, a huge bigger-than-king-size bed. Huge bathroom, and a large outdoor terrace overlooking the park. The camp is situated up on one of the high hills, so the views are amazing. At night, there’s basically a tent around the bedroom that the staff zips up, so you’re protected from animals and bugs. The main lodge has the bar, huge living room where all the guests gather for pre-dinner drinks, a dining room, and pool (where the elephants would come and drink from). Each camp we went to on our trip just kept getting nicer. Again, top-notch service and amazing food. Good cocktail menu. Again, they did laundry for us every day.
🦁 Game Drives
We spent the next 3 days on game drives. 6:00 AM departure, breakfast in the bush around 9:30, returning around 11:00. Shower/nap/relax from 11:00-1:00; lunch at 1:00; nap/relax until 4:00; afternoon game drive from 4:00-7:00 (with sundowners cocktails in the bush around 6:00); pre-dinner drinks around 7:30; dinner at 8:00. Shortly after dinner, we were ready for bed. It was a good pace, without feeling overwhelming. We had the same guide every day (Festo). On 2 of the days, there were 4 of us in the truck (a lovely couple from Dublin). The last day (as well as airport transfers), were private – just us and the guide. The trucks here are all open – no windows, so it’s great wildlife viewing.
🐘 Elephants at Camp
There was a family of elephants that would come and visit the camp, so that they could drink from the pool. One afternoon, while we were having lunch, we were lucky to experience them.
🐘Ruaha Game Drives
The game drives in Ruaha were great. Especially because it was the least busy park we were in. In the crater, and even in Seregenti, when you came across a lion or cheetah or something else special, there were typically another 5 to 10 (or even more) trucks with you. In Ruaha, most of the time, it was just us. Maybe one other truck.
🛩️ Flight to Dar es Salaam
On the final morning, our same private guide picked us up, and drove us to an airstrip, where we flew to Dar es Salaam. In DAR, we were met by a rep who then transferred us from the domestic terminal to the larger international terminal.
🛋️ DAR airport lounge
We hung out at the lounge at DAR, which was actually a pretty shitty lounge. First time in almost two weeks that it wasn’t a five-star experience.
✈️ Fly from DAR-DOH-DFW.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania → Doha, Qatar → Dallas
Business Class, Q-Suites, on Qatar Airlines. Private suite with doors, lie-flat double bed. Incredible flight experience. With a Chase 30% bonus, it was 131,000 each way for the both of us. Transferred Chase points to British Airways, and then BA to Qatar. My best miles redemption ever.
5.5 hours of flying time to Doha, then 16.5 hours to DFW.
We visited the Qatar business class lounge in Doha, which was excellent. A shower and sit down meal.
🏨 A night in Dallas
We spent a night in Dallas, at the Grand Hyatt DFW; used 25,000 Hyatt points.
It was 36 hours from when we left the camp in Ruaha until we arrived at the Hyatt in Dallas.
We took the train from the airport out to Grapevine TX for dinner. It’s a cute little town, with a lovely downtown area – lots of restaurants, shops, and wineries.
We had pizza at Mister 01 Pizzeria, which was super delicious. We shared the Star Luca pizza – it’s folded into an eight-pointed star shape, with every single point hand-stuffed with creamy fresh ricotta cheese. Topped with Italian tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, spicy Calabrese salami, and fresh basil. Much better than overpriced restaurants at the airport.
✈️ Fly from Dallas to Cancun
American Airlines; Business Class; 40,000 miles total for 2 of us.