An African safari doesn't have to mean a traffic jam. On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene travels to Tanzania's southern circuit—visiting two parks most first-time safari-ers never consider—and discovers what happens when you trade the famous Great Migration crossing for a dry riverbed with not another human being in sight.
To get there, she consulted Elizabeth Gordon, co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, who helped reframe what an African safari could be. What followed was eight days in Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park: a walking safari with a guide who reads the wind with a pouch of ash, a river full of hippos and crocodiles that Aislyn took to calling "danger soup," and a fly camp on a lake where a ranger stayed up all night speaking hippo so she didn't have to.
Come back next week for a bonus episode about what happens when a lion leaves the park—and meets a herd of cattle.
THIS WEEK'S GUESTS
Elizabeth Gordon is the co-founder of Extraordinary Journeys, a bespoke travel company designing African safari itineraries—and trips throughout South America and Asia—for travelers who want more than the standard route. Born in Kenya to a mother who joined the Peace Corps, earned her pilot's license, and built a house on a game park outside Nairobi, Elizabeth grew up between Kenya and France, studied in Beijing, and managed safari camps in Namibia before launching the company with her mother.
Pay Mbaryo is a walking guide and naturalist with Nomad Tanzania in Ruaha National Park. A farmer's son who grew up in the Gorongosa district, he has spent 15 years in the bush and navigates unmarked wilderness using what he calls a natural GPS. In a decade of guiding, he has never once had to use his rifle.
Gerald is a guide with Nomad Tanzania in Nyerere National Park, in his fourth year on the Rufiji River. He can identify a hippo's path out of the water by sight and smell—and he was the one who handed Aislyn a hippo skull to explain exactly why you don't want to be in that path.
IN THIS EPISODE
Why Tanzania's Southern Circuit—specifically Ruaha National Park and Nyerere National Park—offers a better African safari experience for first-time visitors than the Great Migration crossing: fewer people, better guides, and wildlife that doesn't know you're there
What a walking safari in Ruaha actually feels like: reading the wind with a pouch of ash, approaching a mother elephant and her calf without being detected, learning to make a toothbrush from a tree, and discovering the Small Five
How Pay spent 15 years learning that birds, buffalo, and elephants are all sharing information with one another—and why walking safari means becoming part of that conversation rather than watching it from a Jeep
The Rufiji River at Nyerere: a wide, curving expanse of "danger soup"—filled with hippos and crocodiles—and what an afternoon on the water teaches you about the elephant as a keystone species
What fly camping looks like when Nomad's team digs a bathroom into the sand, rigs a hot shower, serves gin and tonics under the stars, and a ranger stays up all night so you can fall asleep to the sound of the hippo brass band
CHAPTER MARKERS
00:00:00 Introduction: African Safari, But Different
00:04:00 Why the Southern Circuit
00:08:00 Arriving in Ruaha
00:12:00 Walking Safari With Pay
00:20:00 The Small Five and the Keystone Species
00:26:00 Nyerere and the Rufiji River
00:33:00 Danger Soup: Life on the Water
00:38:00 Fly Camping With Hippos
LINKS & RESOURCES
Extraordinary Journeys
Nomad Tanzania
Nomad Kigelia Camp, Ruaha
Nomad Sand Rivers Camp, Nyerere
Ruaha National Park, Tanzania
Nyerere National Park, Tanzania
View From Afar—Great Migration episode
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