Elephant Caves Hike And School Tour

Lynn Hogan
Mar 18, 2019
3 min read

Jambo Jambo is the greeting we received everywhere in Tanzania with big smiles. And the reply back is the same... or Hakuna Matata if you prefer no worries!

A beautiful morning (with AWESOME coffee and breakfast) greeted us as we made our plans for our first day. We had time for a morning hike which was a great thing to start off with to shake off the long flight. Acacia Lodge organizes hikes to Elephant Caves, which is about a 20 minute drive away. The circuitous hike is about 2 hours long, and is escorted by Lodge staff who provide water and snacks as well.

To get there, you’ll drive past town and villages and people going about their everyday lives so you’ll get a feel for the area and the drivers are happy to answer your questions along the way. Arriving at the hike site, we were greeted by a local guide who passed out hiking sticks to those who wanted them, and we set out.

The hike is moderately uphill and shaded by beautiful trees, vegetation and flowering plants along with many bird species along the trail which JD would point out giving us intricate detail and answer all our many questions. What I didn’t expect was to see animals on the trail! Evidence of porcupine lairs, baboons, a dik dik running through the trees and yes... just ahead of us- a small herd of elephants browsing through...So close we could smell them, but missed them by 5 minutes. It was exciting though to listen silently and carefully for them and wonder if they would appear around each corner...

Reaching the Elephant caves.. it was a sight to behold... There were huge caves dug into a steep hillside of red soil. Ellies have come here for generations to seek out the minerals found in this one special place that they need in their diets. They come from many miles away and dig creating these caves into the mountainside that other animals benefit from as well.

In fact, a waterbuck ( our first game - sighting of the trip!) came tearing out of a large cave just as we arrived! Exciting indeed as we did not expect to see that!

After a good look around, we continued on to a 40 foot waterfall which was not far from the caves. Standing at the top looking across the valley we could see the farmlands below, beyond the trees, then hiked over to a lookout point to see the full falls from below.

It’s a good thing to take advantage of any opportunities to hike in Africa to experience what can be seen on foot as well as to get some exercise!

On our way back, we were treated to a stop at Gibbs Farm just for a quick site visit, a lovely farm lodge just near the caves. It is a working plantation with bungalows set amongst beautifully landscaped gardens. The 100+ year old farmhouse which is used for the restaurant and bar looks much like the homestead in the movie Out Of Africa, and there are many activities to participate in here too including bread baking, vegetable harvesting, coffee roasting, and feeding farm animals. It is a great entree into Africa before getting into the actual bush.

A highlight of our trip for sure was an organized visit to a local school.

We arrived just as the children (ranging in age from 3-15) were singing in a large circle in front of us.

Most were boarding students, as many had either lost 1 or both parents and their homes were too far away. After meeting the headmaster in his office, and signing his guest book, we continued out to the school yard to meet the students. Shy at first, we held timid hands together joining their circle and their singing. Our friend Donielle broke the ice when she started around the circle greeting each of the kids one by one, and we had so much fun taking pictures with them and showing them their photos and videos after.

Our girls loved being surrounded by the kids with hugs and smiles and they asked simple questions in English It was really hard to say good bye, but we promised to keep in touch with the headmaster and send him some of our photos. Photos 4 and 5