Jongomero

Jongomero is Ruaha's most luxurious safari camp - beautifully designed and hugely comfortable - but it also ticks the box if you're main objective is to get away from the crowds. The flip side to this is that the camp is quite some distance from the main game areas in the park.  Ergo, so long as you're prepared to have to work for your game (never a bad thing) then this is a good bet. The truth is that game learns quickly where the safe places are and now that Jongomero has been in operation for a few years animals are already more relaxed (and therefore visible) than they were. 

The area south of Jongomero has just been desinated National Park (it used to be a hunting area) and already the game has realised it is much safer so game sitings are getting increasingly better from the camp.

Jongomero is the furthest west of any of the camps in Ruaha, it lies on the Jongomero Sand River a short distance away from the confluence with the Great Ruaha River and some 70 km from Msembe headquarters. The camp has its own airstrip which is a short flight (15 minutes) further on from the main Ruaha strip, so although it's a significant distance from all other camps by road it's easily accessible by air from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. If privacy and luxury are at the top of your list, then Jongomero Safari Camp is probably the one for you in Ruaha. It's small, with only 8 tents, and the design and build quality is second to none in Ruaha. Each tent, set under a shady thatched banda, is large and beautifully designed with more than enough room to swing even the largest of cats.

The tents are of a superb quality with a continuous mosquito net window running all the way round and mosquito netting doors (as well as the normal canvas doors) so it's cool inside and you can have an almost completely uninterrupted view of the outside from your bed. Decoration inside the tents is to a very high standard and has clearly benefited from the eye of someone who knows what they're doing. The interiors have a subtle elegance and most importantly everything works and is as comfortable as it looks.

The shower is spectacular and stands in a space about three metres by three metres, which makes it virtually impossible to splash water over the rest of the bathroom… There's a swimming pool here which is small and designed to look rather like a rock pool. It sits high up on the bank of the sand river, so you can keep an eye on comings and goings whilst cooling off.