After a short night, we left for Kilimanjaro International Airport shortly before 05 am. We were picked up on time and the journey took less time than expected. After the security check, we still had plenty of time for breakfast. For the security check, we had to disinfect our hands, our temperature was taken, we had to wear a mask for the first time in a long time and we were robbed of all our lighters – after the check, it was okay again to walk through the airport without a mask.

Day 1 – Transit to Selous – A long journey

After arriving at Dar Es Salaam airport, we tried several ATMs again until we found one where cash withdrawal was possible. We also had to wait half an hour for our pick-up, as our flight had landed earlier than planned. The wait felt very short – every few seconds we were approached by taxi drivers asking if we wanted to go into the city centre. After our guide and driver Juda had arrived and we had paid his boss (once again we had been millionaires for a short time), our tour started. This time we had the Land Cruiser just for us and could spread out.

The drive took forever, as Juda chose the longer route for safety reasons (rainy season, and according to the weather forecast it was only supposed to rain for the next few days). On the way, we had a short lunch break – we had beef with rice, beans, and chilies. We’d rather not talk about the “meat”. So we finally reached the first point of our tour around 16:45 – a boat trip on the Rufiji River, which separates the Selous Game Reserve from the Nyerere National Park.

During the boat trip, we saw countless birds, a few crocodiles, hippos, and a white frog, which can change its colour to better adapt to the environmental conditions – the white, for example, serves as protection from the strong sun. In some places, our small boat had to fight hard against the strong current. We also stopped briefly at a sandbank to walk over it a bit – there had been quite a few crocodiles here shortly before. After this two-hour boat trip, we drove to our camp and were amazed at our accommodation. A huge tent with a large bed, a veranda in front of it, and a separate bathroom area inside the tent – we had both seen much smaller and far worse hotel rooms.

Day 2 – Selous Game Reserve – Quite a few birds here

After breakfast the next day, we started our game drive through the park. Today, we were also accompanied by Naomi, a relatively young, open-minded, and funny Tanzanian woman who was serving in our accommodation and wanted to start her training as a guide – Juda did a sort of “training on the job” with her that day. The formalities at the gate took a little over an hour and we immediately noticed the huge number of trucks driving into the park. Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction going on in the park – roads were being improved and the park was also being used to generate electricity through water, and this resource was also being further developed.

This unfortunately created so much noise that many animals had retreated deeper into the park and we saw “only” wildebeest, giraffes, a few zebras, kudus, and antelopes on this day, as well as thousands of the most diverse birds in the most colorful colors.

During our lunch picnic at a hippo pool, Juda and Naomi sang a Tanzanian love song “Malaika” for us – the day before, Juda had already sung a welcome song for us in the car.

Day 3 – Bushwalk and transit back to Dar Es Salaam – Turning shit into gold

Directly after getting up early the next morning, we only had a coffee to quickly get to our meeting point, where we met Bushman Didi and the “Commander”. Both of them were to guide us through the bush for the next 1.5 hours and tell and show us all kinds of interesting things, which left us and the other group members open-mouthed. At times Didi’s manner was a bit exaggerated and resembled a theatre show for tourists, but at the same time, it was hilarious to see this guy in his outfit and how he acted.

The most harmless thing was that he showed us a huge baobab tree, suddenly grabbed a vine and within a few seconds was standing 10m above us worshipping said tree. Meanwhile, the commander was constantly creeping through the bushes around us, the shotgun always in his hand, as if there was danger lurking behind every branch. Probably the “sharpest” action that morning happened while Didi was telling us about the danger of dying of thirst in the bush. Actually, he had just shown us a huge pile of elephant dung and explained how to recognise females and males from this pile, when he suddenly took a big handful of this pile in his hand and squeezed out the last drops of liquid and let it drip into his mouth. Andreas wanted to reach for the camera to take photos and videos, but was rooted to the spot by this spectacle and hardly moved. Other curiosities included climbing a 4-metre-high termite pile to open it and tasting the startled animals with loud cries of pain, and gnawing the bark of a tree with his teeth – an old remedy for stomach problems, also to neutralise the stomach after his special “morning potion”. It was hardly possible to take photos, so fascinating was this “freak show” – the 1.5 hours were already over and it felt like we had only been here with Didi for 10 minutes.

After breakfast, we packed our things and started back towards Dar Es Salaam. We were seen off by a Colobus monkey. As there had not been a single drop of rain in the last few days, Judah took the short route. This meant that we reached our destination so early that we threw the original plan overboard and had ourselves dropped off at the ferry terminal. We bought two tickets and set sail for what was really our last destination on this long trip, the island of Zanzibar.