30 Dec 2018
Hamad picked us up from our hotel in Dar and accompanied us for the days exploring Selous before taking us back to Dar. He was great the whole time, very experienced, thoughtful, knowledgeable and great at locating animals. He was also an excellent mechanic which came in very handy as the vehicles supplied by Watu are not the best. This is one area where they lost one star from us.
Hamad made our trip a great success and we recommend asking for him in person. Selous is beautiful and contains a surprising variety of animals and landscapes. In two days we saw zebras, hippos, crocs, warthogs, giraffes, impala, bushbuck, waterbuck, buffalo, Wildebeest, hyenas, lions, baboons, colobus and vervet monkeys and even wild dogs.
We stayed at the African Safari Camp which Watu arranged for us. Basic food but they did try hard to cater for us as vegetarians which we appreciated. The bush walk the hotel arranged on the last morning was a waste of time for us though. We're glad we didn't have to pay extra for that.
Had our vehicle been more reliable, the trip would have been perfect. As it was, we broke down twice on the way to and from Dar and the camp had to take it for an entire day to attempt a repair. That meant sharing with another couple in a smaller vehicle and losing Hamad for a day. However we'd still highly recommend Watu.