 Mikumi
National Park: A gateway to southern parks paradise
By: Elisha Mayallah
A country that has dedicated more than 42,000 square kilometres [over a third of
the territory] to national parks, Tanzania has a lot going for it: It's
different, diverse, organized and safe. It explains why I have continued
visiting national parks, and it explains the wealth of nature Tanzania is
endowed with.
If the first cut is indeed the deepest, as they say: It would explain why my
first contact with Mikumi National Park still provides some of my most vivid
travel memories.
Many people have heard of the Park but, in the past, few ever made a tour of
this intriguing, warm and charming semi-rural park just a four-hour drive off
from Dar es Salaam city and nearly two hours drive from Morogoro town.
The park is distinctively semi-rural and charming in its simplicity. Lives
revolve around wildlife, prolific birdlife, growth seasons, movement of people
and the pain of the Dar es Salaam to Iringa main road. Motorists usually have an
interest in seeing the wealth of wildlife and therefore Mikumi is a perfect
tourism spot.
With a few accidents killing animals lessened lately, motorists have had a
bitter experience with the park authorities, in the past, when accidents were
soaring. Today, zebras, giraffes, impalas and gazelles trot away at the sound of
an approaching vehicle, nervously twitching their ears, unlike game in other
parks that have become familiar to motor traffic.
A tour to the park has some delightful little gems as I discovered on a visit
there recently. As I stopped to admire the completely different nature of the
undulating landscape, which was stretching towards the Mkata floodplains, the
popular centrepiece of the park drawing frequent comparisons to the famous
Serengeti National Park.
"Mikumi is set like in a bowl of Blue Mountains and is nearly always green and
fresh" Said Mr. John Shemkunde the Chief Park Warden. "It is unfortunate that
this time around the park is dry and the sun is scorching hard," he added.
Our safari had started from Arusha, my friend Richard Mwangulube and I had been
invited to join a safari to the park with Mr. Joseph, Rugarabamu and Mama Gwiji.
Our group was fairly social with the rest coming from Dar es Salaam, nearly 300
kilometres away. Having been to many National Park's, the most natural
wilderness I most wanted to see in Mikumi was the Rivers, swamps, woodlands, the
main features of the Park.
The Park is named after a small-town, Mikumi, laying beyond the Park's western
border on the Dar es Salaam to Iringa road. The small-town takes its name from
the word mikuky, a word from Wavidunda dialect for the borassus palm, common in
the area.
Mikumi town is known for its upmarket accommodation facilities. Somewhere,
somehow, I thought we were to stay at a run-down local one. But, as I discovered
to my embarrassment Genesis one of the standard facility in the area which
boasts of a snake park in the neighbourhood was our hotel destination.
We were welcomed warmly by Mr. Doday from our host park, and found the hotel
staff polite, helpful and sympathetic throughout our stay. Highly efficient, but
none of the macho nastiness I have experienced elsewhere. Perhaps this is what
makes Genesis so special, warm, kind, gentle and hospitable beyond belief.
Surely, they were classy.
Mikumi declared a National Park in 1967 is part of the Southern Tourism Circuit
and is the fourth largest Park in Tanzania covering an area of 3,230 sq
kilometres after Serengeti, Ruaha and Katavi. It borders the Selous Game
Reserve, the largest in the continent to the south. Migration of animals between
the two ecosystems enables uninterrupting game viewing all-round the year. The
Mikumi-Selous ecosystem is the biggest in Africa.
Our day began with a truly beautiful dawn, the kind when the sun filters through
broad-leafed woodland like percolated gold, promising magnificent
potential-to-see. There to take us was the attention-to-detail Ms. Tutindaga
George Mwakijambile, Park Warden Tourism, who, however, earned the title after
the safari.
Tutindaga probed us for what we knew of the bush and continued with casual but
firm safety talk. I was immediately impressed by her, as I found in her a
professional guide who is confident enough to be bold with animals yet skilled
enough not to take any undue risks.
During the rains game viewing becomes easier, Tutindaga told us. We were
thrilled on our next sighting – a herd of buffaloes dozing under a Sausage tree.
We found the buffaloes just standing, one old bull eyeing us questioningly,
while a family of warthogs dashed into the dense bush, tails upright.
We watched big herds of impalas, gazelles and birds feeding as we drove further
in the Park. Almost unnoticed a wildebeest laying near the road sat up and
darted away. Then we passed a small pond where about a dozen hippos lay drowned,
snorting and grunting to one another as they kept a wary eye on a crocodile
attack.
The borassus palms, marula fruit, baobab trees and sausage trees standing sentry
over the landscape in the Park enabled us complete our sightings of the plants.
Then just as we were to drive on we watched a family of giraffes nibbling tree
leaves. Next, was a pair of impalas locking horns while herds of gazelles passed
nearby.
The most spectacular sight, however, was sights of the Mkata River, which runs
south to north through Mikumi crossing the main road to the west of the main
entrance. Eventually it joins the Wami River before emptying into the Indian
Ocean north of Dar es Salaam.
We passed all-over herds of Grants racing alongside the road, as we made a
u-turn. A later game drive following a different direction on return was
fortuitous as we stumbled on another herd of buffaloes resting by the roadside
with the younger ones. The entire group took turns sunning themselves in the
open and then seeking refuge in a large bush spotted with lavender.
At a distance we saw a family of elephants, one of the residents in the Park,
browsing in the middle of the stream near a riverbed with egrets hitching a ride
on its back. Like some strange sea monster one of the bulls thrashed the grass
in the air, getting rid of excess mud before swallowing.
After few hours touring the park, and as we drove out, it was hard to imagine
that we were leaving as I looked back at it longingly. I was delighted to
discover that a visit to Mikumi is a first step on the road to the paradise of
southern parks, and ours was just the beginning. Perhaps, it is time you visited
Mikumi!
E-mail contact: elisha.mayallah@gmail.com
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