I recently travelled to Tanzania on an Adventure Company organised tour and accordingly did not have a say in choosing the accommodation. In fact I did not know where I would be staying before booking as it is Adventure Company?s policy not to reveal this in case there are changes for operational reasons. My trip included a safari in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania and Sable Mountain Lodge was the base for four nights.

Sable Mountain lodge is situated just outside the Selous Game Reserve, I saw no disadvantage to being just outside the game reserve rather than being in it, so nothing to get hung up about here. It is a short and enjoyable drive to the park entrance and we usually saw wildlife along the way. I travelled to the lodge from Dar es Salaam by train which took four hours and cost $25 in a comfortable first class compartment. The train operates twice a week, I always enjoy a train ride and this was no exception, the last two hours are through the reserve itself and I enjoyed looking for animals for the first hour before darkness fell.

For those that don?t like train journeys or want to travel on one of the five days of the week that the train does not operate, then it is possible to fly from Dar es Salaam, Arusha or Zanzibar. The planes will be small, about twelve seats and the flights cost around US$150 - US$200 one way. It is also possible to travel by road and this takes six hours. At the end of my trip, I took the flight to Zanzibar which takes about an hour.

Lodgings

There are three types of accommodation available; stone cottages, tented rooms and honeymoon suites which are larger and more luxurious tented rooms. I was in one of the stone cottages, which are apparently slightly more basic than the tented rooms but from the descriptions and pictures I have seen I don?t think there could be much difference.

The bedroom was a decent size, it contained a double bed with a mosquito net over, table, chairs, dressing table and some storage space for clothes. The bathroom was adequate, there was a curious indoor rock garden around the loo, a sink and a basic shower. The lodge purports to provide hot water but we did not get any, in fact all we got was a very slow trickle of cool but not freezing cold water. It was not something that unduly troubled us, although when I heard that others had plenty of hot water I felt slightly envious. Outside we had a small veranda and two chairs, we had some far reaching views over a lot of trees. I understand one of the cottages overlooks a watering hole which sounds nice, although I don?t think the people staying there saw any animals.

We stayed at the lodge on an all inclusive basis and our meals were taken in the restaurant at the bottom of the camp. Breakfast comprised fruit, fruit juice, bread and any or all of eggs, bacon and beans. Everybody seemed to enjoy breakfast very much. The standard of food at dinner was also very good, meals were three courses followed by coffee. As we were a group we ate together at a fixed time and I possibly would have liked a bit more flexibility which an independent visitor would have.

Pictures of Sable Mountain Lodge, Tanzania

Sable Mountain Lodge

• 
• 
• 
• 

It is a bit of a trek up to the swimming pool area but well worth the effort, the pool is quite large, freshwater and covered which I thought was an excellent idea as I find it too easy to not notice the heat and get burned whilst in a pool. There are a few sun loungers near the pool, a bar and a large open sided lounge area with lots of extremely comfortable sofas and chairs. I loved it here, it was one place I managed to keep cool with the lovely breeze and could easily have sat here all day reading.

At risk of stating the obvious, activities on offer include game driver?s which can be full or half day. Additionally there are walking safaris and a visit to a nearby Masai village. On my first day I did the full day safari. We departed around 7 or 8am after breakfast in three separate vehicles with between four and six people in each. There were six in my vehicle which was an open sided land rover, we sat in two rows of three, the front row was higher up than the driver?s cab and the back row was higher than the front row so we all had very good views. I really liked the vehicles in use, we saw few other vehicles on our drives but I did see one that was like a small bus, was not open sided so the people were looking and trying to take pictures through slightly murky windows and it just did not look as good as ours.

The next morning half of the group went on a walking safari and the others another game drive. I was on the walking safari but did not enjoy it at all, we spent most of our time gazing at animal dung and ants which some seemed to find interesting but it did not float my boat and I wished I had stayed in bed. It was also incredibly muggy although not hot. In the afternoon the idea was to swap over but the lightweights chickened out of their walking safari and opted for another game drive instead. I don?t blame them, I would not have wanted to walk around for a couple of hours in that heat either. Game drives this day were not as successful as the day before as there had been rain which meant that animals did not need to wander far to find water. On my final full day, I spent the morning lazing around the pool and the afternoon I opted for the Masai village tour. It was a short tour and I found it very interesting to see the village and meet some local people.