August 12-14: Katavi National Park

My first destination in Tanzania is Katavi National Park, located in the far western reaches of the country. Note, my inland journey through Tanzania this year focuses on the western-most section of the country because last year Nancy and I and friends spent 1 month overlanding in the eastern and central part of Tanzania, where we visited some amazing National Parks.

Katavi NP (1,726 sq. mi.), established in 1974, is a very remote and thus rarely visited Park (I read that they have fewer than 500 guests a year, and I am told by one of the rangers almost never a self-drive camper like me) – making it extremely attractive to me. The Park is situated within a truncated arm of the Rift Valley (the Rukwa Riff basin) that terminates in the shallow, brooding expanse of Lake Rukwa just outside the Park.

Most of Katavi NP supports a rather homogeneous cover of tangled Miombo woodlands (discussed previously) in the uplands, home to substantial but elusive populations of eland, sable and roan antelopes. However, the main focus of the Park is the Katuma and Kavuu Rivers and associated floodplains, along which are found some extensive grasslands such as the Katisunga Plain and the seasonal Lakes Katavi and Chada. I spent almost all of my time driving along the Katuma River and the immediately adjacent floodplains, and along the edge of Katisunga Plain, since that is where most of the wildlife concentrate during this time of year. Here are some photos the landscape I visited, beginning with an aerial view of Katisunga Plain that I borrowed from the internet to give you a better perspective on this awesome natural setting:

My first two nights in the Park I camped at the one interior public campsite, called Ikuu, which was only set up for a single party – in part because they almost never get any campers and, if they do, it is a single party. It’s only redeeming feature was that it was close to the Katuma River and my wildlife drives along it. On the downside, the site itself was rather bland. First of all, it was about 100 meters from the river, so there was no river view – although there could have been had they sited the campsite closer to the river! Second, there was only a single “shade” tree, but it was deciduous and had lost most of its leaves, so I had to “chase” the shade of the tree trunk on one of my siestas. On the second day, I had learned my lesson and spent the midday along the river watching the “circle-of-life” scene play out, as shown the video. Lastly, there was trash everywhere left over from the last camper and NOT picked up by the Park staff, but rather left for the monkeys to scatter it everywhere. I picked up most of the trash and bagged it and delivered to the Park headquarters and let them know of my disappointment. This combined with the fact that the water tank ran dry after the first day allowed me to successfully argue for not paying for a night of camping. Here is a photo of my not-so-spectacular campsite:

After realizing that the water tank was dry and that after 2 days I had done all the local wildlife drives at Ikuu, rather than retread those same tracks, I decided to head to the Park headquarters where there was the only other public campsite in the Park and tour the area around Lake Katavi. Well, when I got there I learned from the head ranger that the public campground “was not working”, basically because they could not get the toilets to work. So, instead of a campsite, they put me in a “banda”; essentially, a small 2-room concrete hut, but for the same price of $30. So here I sit for my midday siesta. Here’s a photo of my banda, in case you were wondering:

I visited Lake Katavi on my last evening and I found it quite interesting. I describe the interesting dynamic of this seasonal lake in the video below, but the upshot is that this lake goes from being a huge but relatively shallow water body in the wet season to a mostly dried up basin with small channels and remnant pools of various sizes during the dry season when I visited. Here’s a photo of some of what I saw:

For those of you interested in local culture, I also learned that the Lake was named after a spirit that inhabits the Lake called Katabi, after which the Lake and the Park were named. Apparently, this spirit has the power to grant myriad fortunes to the natives, or so some believe, as described in the sign fronting the spirit tree shown here:

The most noteworthy things about this Park are: 1) the remoteness and rarely visited atmosphere – as one site put it, it’s “far-flung and off-the-map quality” being the most impressive drawcard – I believe I saw a couple of other vehicles on my two days of wildlife drives, and thus all of my wildlife viewing was private; and 2) the high densities of hippos and crocs. In fact, Katavi has the highest densities of these two species in all of Tanzania, and I can verify this to be true as the rivers were crowded with both species. Indeed, hippos are to Katavi as elephants are to Hwange in Zimbabwe. I did see quite a few other mammal pecies, including elephants, giraffe, defassa waterbuck, common bushbuck, impala, topi, zebra, cape buffalo, banded mongoose, and two new mammal species for me: the large grey mongoose and the bohor reedbuck. Unfortunately, I did not see any of the big cats or wild dogs, all of which are reported to be here. However, the highlight for me was all the wading birds, including storks, herons, egrets, ibises, pelicans, and plovers. They were everywhere along the rivers and kept my binoculars very busy – Phil, you would have loved it!

Here is another long (sorry, I can’t help as it is all so interesting to me) composite video of my observations at Katavi for the most dedicated among you, including some landscape scenes and descriptions, lots of hippos, a “circle-of-life” sequence involving a dead hippo and a bunch of scavenger birds, a couple of cool bird species snippits, and even a “dragon”. Hope you enjoy:

Katavi National Park composite video (39 minutes)

It’s been a long time since I gave you a mystery quiz, either auditory or visual, so I am going to throw one in here for good luck. What creature do you think made this burrow? Hints: it is about 1 foot in diameter and the creature is one of Sherry and Kirsten’s favorites:

If you think you know, submit your entry. The first to get it wins the prize of pride.

Cheers!

Photo Gallery: