To celebrate the new year, the staff at my school were all invited to go on an overnight trip to the Selous Game Reserve. The school rented a bus to pick us all up at school and after a few hours on a bumpy dirt road we arrived at Selous. While a bus is not exactly the ideal vehicle for travelling on dirt paths through the wilderness and viewing wildlife everyone still had a good time and enjoyed the journey to the hostel where we were staying the night 70 km past the Reserve Gate. The Rufiji River cuts through Selous and lots of elephants, giraffes, zebras and birds can be seen enjoying the water:
Outside our hostel we found a warthog family that was hanging out:
After a restful night that was nice and cool due to the rain we started to head back towards the entrance gate at noon. The park rangers made us wait an extra hour before we were allowed on the road because of the rain.
While our hardy little bus was able to make its way along the wilderness roads while they were dry it was not quite up to the task after a night of rain. Shortly after we started driving we found ourselves sliding into a ditch along the road. Everyone piled out of the bus and while the park ranger who accompanied us kept watch for dangerous wild animals and the lion we could hear growling in the bush nearby everyone pushed the bus back onto the mud that was trying to pose as a road and we continued on our way.
That first trip into the ditch turned out to be the easiest one to get out of - Further down the road we found our bus tire deep in a river of mud too many times to count! Since there is no AAA in Africa (that I know of) we had to get ourselves out of the mud on our own. We literally had to create our own road out of boulders, logs, sticks and grass that we could find in the bush in order to create a surface the bus could drive on without sinking.
Even the ranger helped! (Note the big gun)
All the while a giraffe family watched us from down the road. They weren't used to seeing people outside of their vehicles in an area where large, dangerous, carniverous animals hunt for their dinner!
Finally, after seven hours of this business and after the ranger spotted a leapord nearby (!) a giant tractor showed up to tow us through the rest of the muddy spots and we reached the entrance gate by 8:00. Eight hours to travel only 70 km (a little less than 45 miles). It was quite an adventure! Next time I visit Selous, however, I will be sure to be in a vehicle with 4-wheel drive.
