Two Days in Saadani National Park
Daniel, Alfa, Brown and I decided to take a weekend trip out side Dar es salaam and Saadani National Park was the first thing to cross my mind.
It was my first time to visit the place. In fact, I never had been in any Tanzania National Parks. Weird huh!!?? So we were very excited to explore the beauty nature of our country.
We hit the road at 4:30 a.m to avoid traffic jams and unreasonable obstacles. We managed that and at 5:45 a.m we arrived at the park gate to complete registration and other formalities including paying the entrance fee. The REST WAS FUN & MEMORABLE TRIP INDEED.
Giraffe (Twiga in *Swahili language).
Yellow Baboon (Nyani Manjano) walking confidently
A Female Common Warthog (Ngiri) breast feeding.
Young Common Warthogs kneel on their knees to feed. Do you know why? because they have short necks and relativity long legs.
Young Reedbuck (Swala)
Lone Vervet Monkey
Waterbuck
Helmeted Guineafowl (Kanga)
Heading back
Below: After spending all day shooting, seeing different animals, chased by angry elephant for 500 meters. You may wonder I what it on his mind :it was actually 18:25 hours approximate. While heading back to the hotel, we just got luck to see these fellas (another one not in the picture) chilling down the road. We wereed told there were not many African leopard so it was our lucky day I can say.
Technically, I opted to have black and white image because it was already late evening I had to raise the ISO so i can get more light. On post, I added contrast, Nik collection plugin Dfine 2 to reduce the noise.
African Leopard (Chui).
Greeted with a new friend next morning. Do not dare to leave your door open.
Carrying mother.
Behind The Scenes
Gate park (iphone 5 photo)
That moment group of Elephants showed up
Below: The place is called Bwawa la Halima (Halima Dam). A barrier constructed to hold back water and raise its level so that the resulting reservoir be used for animals as a water supply. Our tour guide told us to wait for a while and see the elephants because they drink water either in the morning or evening hours.We decided to wait and we only stayed there for 30 minutes and they finally showed up (see the above pic reaction).
Elephants normally don`t drink water if in presence of humans and if they felt any thing suspicious and there is a leader who shows indications (According to our guide) and actually that was exactly what happened. The elephant saw us and they passed without touching the water and this was the moment we got the group pictures.
Gang geared up!! I, Danny, Alfa & Brown (W/ the African elephant at the background) also known as photographers who chased by elephant. Photo by Swalehe (Our tour guide).
My Tips & Recommendations
- Tanzania National Parks accept debits cards & credit card only (no cash) except meals ;
- Fill your tank full to enjoy your trip. The Park is in two regions of Tanga & Coast.
- Stay for a minimum of 3 days (unless you're lucky like us and we saw Leopard on just day 1) you will have the better chances to see all animals (Not a guarantee). Sadly, we did not see lions (but I heard the roar while sleeping) and buffalos.
- Morning hours up to 9 am and evening hours golden hour to sunset are best timing for cruising around and seeing animals. Day time most of the animals are not active because of the harsh sunlight.
If you have been there feel free to share!!
Footnote: Shot on a Nikon D810, with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, & 24-70mm f/2.8, Canon EOS 700D, Canon EOS 5D Mark III w/ EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS USM & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, and iPhone 5.