The camp in some peoples eyes may be looking a little forlorn these days, in need of a little renovation, but they would be missing the point! Mwagusi is a safari camp that maintains exceptionally high safari standards for which it has become so famous. The camp itself is not for everyone; Mwagusi is a real safari camp, intended to be a camp as opposed to being a hospitality focussed safari hotel. It remains our favourite camp in the park for sheer quality of game. So long as you are happy to forego the opulent luxury of wooden polished floors and copper wash bowls, there is every likely hood that you will have a safari experience to knock you sideways.
Mwagusi Camp - The Facts
a serious, privately run safari camp
located in the best game area of Ruaha
13 wooden and thatch bandas
absolutely fantastic food
Mwagusi Camp - The Detail
It is an area where all manner of local wildlife dig holes in the sand to drink the clear waters that flow beneath, and the camp brims with a rare passion for the place that is infectious.
Mwagusi is owned and run by Chris Fox, whose knowledge of this area extends back to long holidays spent camping in this area before it even became a National Park, and whose family helped to ensure that the land was gazetted and fully protected in 1964. He developed the camp as an offshoot from the Ruaha River Lodge, originally managing that camp and using the Mwagusi location for extended fly-camping safaris. It is not unusual to wake in the early hours of morning with the magnetic lure of a sublime sunrise over the sand river, to pad out onto your sandy private balcony to see Chris taking a barefooted morning stroll in the company of a very large and ancient, tuskered elephant.
Chris trains and encourages all his camp guides to feel as at home as he does in this wild and golden land, and their knowledge is compounded by a unanimous enthusiasm and barefooted sensitivity to the surroundings. Morning and afternoon driving safaris are by open-sided Land Cruiser - with a maximum of six people in the viewing seats - but there is always a deeply pervasive sense of anticipation that encourages all to hold their breath as tracks are studied and followed by driver, spotter and guide. Mwagusi excels in arranging inspiring walking safaris into the bush, which impart an even deeper sense of the greatness of the place, and tend to amplify a strange sensation of the smallness of your own little life in a much bigger picture.
The camp is designed with all-natural and yet elegant construction that can accommodate 8 couples in absolute safari style. Clothes are washed and folded, tea is left on the balcony with the dawn, and supper is laid on a long white table under a host of twinkling stars by a quiet team of magical, seemingly invisible, camp elves. Mealtimes are sociably shared at long communal tables, and laden with a fantastic gourmet spread that enhances the magic, and sets this place as a world apart.
