Silela Forest Hike

Duration: 1 day

An early start is required to maximise your time walking and you head down the rift wall and head north along the escarpment. Silela forest is around 30 minutes drive, and represents a very special effort by the local community and Hoopoe Safaris to conserve a fragile eco system and elephant corridor from the rift valley plains to the Ngorongoro Highlands. You meet your scout at the nearby Silela village before heading into the thick groundwater forest. Elephants have played a major role in creating numerous elephant trails, which are veritable highways and make for easy walking. Your guides are on hand to show you the local flora and fauna. The forest looms around you, and with luck you may even sight the largest of all land mammals from a safe distance. The walk partially circumnavigates the forest, and you take a picnic lunch at a scenic spot. Swampy vegetation surrounds the forest, fed by a year round supply of water which cascades down rivers and bubbles up from the foot of the scarp. Rich in minerals, this water dries in certain places leaving mineral licks, which the elephants frequent. 

Also of note is the presence of farmers on some of the swamp areas, farming amongst other things, rice. These are key examples of the interaction between pastoralists and agriculturalists, whereby the milk and protein diet of the Maasai is supplemented by food such as rice through trade. 

After lunch you meander towards the rift wall and continue up the escarpment. The path is winding and relatively easy going, and has been engineered over the centuries by the massive bulk of elephants migrating between the rift floor and the forested highlands above. The hike up takes around 2 – 3 hours to reach the pickup point. Here you are able to appreciate how narrow and sensitive the corridor really is as farmlands surround the corridor. These highlands are the strong hold of the Mbulu people. Your vehicle meets you and heads back to your lodge for a well-deserved shower and dinner!