Tanzania blog with Tanzania Odyssey

This blog is a collection of things we think are new and interesting in Tanzania and Zanzibar.

Many of these blogs are press articles concerning Tanzania or Zanzibar which we post on this blog as we find them. Please read on and feel free to post any comments you like.

For detailed information about Tanzania and Zanzibar please look at our site - www.tanzaniaodyssey.com

To view videos of the country and the various lodges please see our Video Console

Or for advice / quotes or anything else please call us in London on 44 (2) 7471 8780 or in the USA on (toll free) 1-866 356 4691

NORTH ISLAND OPENS TODAY

NORTH ISLAND OPENS TODAY

After a six-week closure, we are pleased to announce that North Island OPENS TODAY! The intensive upliftment and improvement of the island is complete and ensures that our concept of signature barefoot luxury has been enhanced and improved for all our guests.

We have focused all our attention on the existing facilities and have ensured that the island remains the private sanctuary for which it has become so well known.

Our open, natural and raw approach to architecture with its Robinson Crusoe style, which dictates a significant level of upkeep, has been renovated and touched up on various areas in our existing 11 villas, main piazza, spa, gym, boutique, activities center, library and west beach bar. This includes thatch replacement, wood maintenance, painting of pools, touching up bathroom facilities and an element of soft refurbishing.

To further enhance our North Island wellness experience, we have added techno gym equipment to a completely revamped gym facility and Thai massage decks in each of our spa villas.

To coincide with our opening, we have equipped our helicopter pad with the necessary equipment and safety features that will now allow for night landings of registered helicopters.

With all this complete, as well as much time and effort given to our environmental upliftment, the Noah’s Ark Project, we are thrilled to open the island again – and welcome guests back to our 'home' – where they can once again enjoy the luxury of which we are proud to be a part.

for more info please see North island

Serengeti in June: The Great Migration

For all of us at Tanzania Odyssey, June remains one of our favourite times of year in the Serengeti. At this time, the huge migration herds are fairly dispersed across the plains, relishing the glorious green that is now splashed across the landscape. To arrive in Africa after the rains is like setting foot in a strange paradise on earth. This continent, so often characterised by the deep red of its earth and sun-scorched plains, comes alive with new life; its incredible distances seem a vast and fruitful garden, awash with thousands of variations of green.

June is a good time for bird-watching, and sparks a proliferation of butterflies. The air is fresh and clear, with low humidity, and long hours in a Land Rover – necessary if you wish to see the best of this region - are far more appealing. At this time the vast herds of the Great Migration are making their way into the north western plains, soon to face the often fatal challenge of crossing the crocodile infested Grumeti River. The crocodiles here are quite used to waiting for their annual feast! Recently, clients driving out with Nomad Safaris witnessed a 5km long line of wildebeest marching near Musabi, and watched a large pride of lions take down two wildebeest at once.

For safari-goers and all wildlife watchers, each venture into the bush is laden with potential; wildlife is finally lured away from its dependence on the few remaining water sources at the end of the dry season, and anything can happen. The vast distances of the Serengeti are breathtaking in themselves, scattered with rock kopjes and ancient land forms that seem to be the very stuff of creation, but it is truly a breathtaking experience to witness this landscape when the migrating herds are chewing their way to each furthest horizon.

The thousands of unfenced acres of the Serengeti and surrounding parks have been fantastically fought for, to protect a vast and unique ecosystem in this glorious region of East Africa. Here the lives of myriad strange and wonderful wild birds and animals play out; their freedom remains paramount. The ever-changing beauties of the bush may never be qualified or quantified; Man has set this land aside to watch and wonder at the strange composition of Nature’s art, but can never presume or predict what he will see.

Tanzania: Mkomazi Receives Black Rhinos from Czech Republic

Article from http://allafrica.com
6 June 2009 - Valentine Marc Nkwame

A pack of three Rhinoceroses from the Czech Republic arrived in Tanzania last weekend and were sent to the Mkomazi Rhino sanctuary in Kilimanjaro region.

The black Rhinos of Diceros Bicornis Michaeli species landed at the Kilimanjaro International Airport from Amsterdam aboard a large customized cargo craft, Boeing 747-400 BCF belonging to the Martinair Airline. They rode in three huge wooden crates.

"The rhino were crate-trained for two months to prepare them for the long flight inside the cages, it required a high level of skilled training to ensure that the animals rode comfortably," stated the retired Brigadier General Hashim Mbita the chairman of the Wildlife Trust Fund.

The animals were taken from the Dvur Kralove zoo, Czech Republic. The Zoo, which specializes in Africa fauna, is reported to be one of the most successful captive-breeding programmes for the Black Rhino in the world. Their rarest animal is the Northern white rhino.

The translocation of the three black 'Michael' Rhinos from Czech Republic cost over US $70,000 this was made possible through a fund-raiser previously done by the Suzuki Rhino Club of Netherlands. Ted and Catrina van Dam who head the Suzuki Rhino club have also been supporting the Mkomazi Rhino project

Two decades ago, Tanzania, with the help of other African Parks, governments, and conservationists, including the George Adamson Wildlife Trust had hatched a protected breeding program to boost the black rhino numbers in parks. They started the Mkomazi Rhino Sanctuary, occupying 43 square miles of the total 2,200 square miles of the new Mkomazi National Park in Same District, Kilimanjaro region. The sanctuary is protected by 24-hours patrol guards and an electrified, alarmed fence.

"At Mkomazi the newly brought Rhinos will be kept under special care and monitoring within the sanctuary before being released into the wild," explained the Director General for the Tanzania National Parks, Mr. Gerald Bigurube, adding that the animals must first learn to adopt to the local environment before being let out.

Which is just as well because, the first rhino refused to leave its crate, upon being let out at Mkomazi and it took a full hour of team effort to persuade the animal to enter the sanctuary.

Tanzania however shouldn't entirely feel like a new planet to the three newly received black rhinos because according to the Director General of TANAPA, the animals were among those taken from East Africa in the early sixties and sent to the Czech's zoo for their safety when their survivals here could not be guaranteed.

Ms Halima Mangi an Ecologist at Mkomazi said the new batch from Czech now brings up the total number of Rhinoceroses at Mkomazi National Park to Nine. "Rhinos had totally disappeared here in the 80s therefore this project, aimed at restoring the species, was started," she said.

The first four rhinos brought from South Africa, two males and two females were introduced to the sanctuary in 1997 with the second batch of four following in 2001. They started to reproduce in 2005 and by 2008 four new babies had been born, however two of these young ones and an older Rhino later died.

The priority at Mkomazi, according to Tony Fitzjohn the Field Director of George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust, is to increase the founder population to at least 15 rhinos from which a whole new population can be created. Dr Dana Holeckova, the Director of the Dvur Kralove Zoo had previously visited Mkomazi with Dr Hamish Currie of Back to Africa and agreed to donate 3 black rhino of Diceros bicornis michaeli species to its Rhino sanctuary.

Dr Peter Morkel, Berry White and Dvur Kralove rhino keepers played an important role in ensuring smooth and safe translocation of Rhinos while back here Tony Fitzjohn, Elisaria Nnko, Wilfred Ayo, Semu Pallangyo and Philbert Shindano handled all the necessary responsibilities.

Ground transportation was taken care of by Grumeti Reserves, Frankfurt Zoological Society, Save-the-Rhino society and again the Suzuki Rhino Club. Support also came from A & K.

NOTE NEW SUGGESTED TIP RATES FOR KILI CLIMBS

New rates for porters and guides for Mt. Kilimanjaro (June 2008)
(published by TANAPA)

Porters: USD 10 per day
Cooks: USD 15 per day
Guides: USD 20 per day

TANAPA fights to improve and maintain Tanzanian Guides

TANAPA (Tanzania National Parks Association) is ready to give financial and technical resources to build capacity for the guides in order to attract more visitors to the country, especially to the National Parks, after a three-day meeting organised by the management of the Serengeti National Parks with the Tanzania Tour Guides Association (TTGA), a body which is increasingly gaining importance in the industry.

The aim is to maintain local knowledge and local guides over the influx of foreign guides in Tanzania. Martin Laibooki, Serengeti chief park warden also said cultural attractions would be promoted for tourism within the vast park. These include the historical sites which have been sighted in recent years.

Tour guides at the meeting suggested improving the infrastucture of the Serengeti, so that northern and northwestern parts may be opened up to allow access to "undiscovered" impressive areas that are currently not easily visited due to bad roads.

Expedition Africa treks Tanzania

Tanzania is the glorious landscape for a new US reality TV show on the History Channel, retracing New York newspaperman Henry Morton Stanley’s 19th century search for Scottish explorer David Livingstone.

The initial segment of the eight-part series drew a larger-than-average audience last week. An estimated 1.3 million viewers turned to the History Channel last week to watch Expedition Africa, which presents a fabulous view of Tanzania, although was slated for its lack of historical perspective.

In Expedition Africa, Burnett recruits four adventurers to follow the general route taken by Stanley, who set off from Zanzibar in 1869. It took the journalist nearly nine months to locate Livingstone, a famous anti-slavery campaigner who had gone missing after starting a trek in 1865 in search of the source of the Nile.

Stanley found Livingstone in Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika, greeting him with the famous words, “Dr Livingstone, I presume.”
The History Channel crew also gathers in Zanzibar for a 1,550km journey, mainly on foot, that they aim to complete in just 30 days. The quartet consists of a female anthropologist and former cheerleader for an American football team; a British thrill-seeker who specialises in televised tests of endurance; a guide who led a blind climber to the summit of Everest; and a former CNN war correspondent.

History Channel publicists suggest that the team will undertake the quest with only compass and maps to guide them. Much is made of the dangers they will supposedly face along the way, beginning with a dhow voyage from Zanzibar to Bagamoyo during which the adventurers are actually splashed by waves.

Burnett also strives to contrive challenges, sending the foursome over the Uluguru Mountains even though Stanley had walked around them. The the intrepid band, is accompanied by a full camera crew, a large contingent of Tanzanian porters and a pair of suitably colourful Maasai warriors - brought along to repel attacks by various predators.

“It’s imperialist nostalgia,” the US newspaper Variety said, “watching four white people hack through the bush with a support staff of natives.” It is reported that “the History Channel sometimes airs respected documentaries, but Expedition Africa has little of interest to say about Stanley, Livingstone or East Africa, neither then nor now.”

The Washington Post warned, “There is little history and even less reality in Expedition Africa. It is neither entertaining nor informing.”
But find some redeeming qualities in Burnett’s version of an African chronicle, including “gorgeous photography, head-spinning production techniques, and deep and abiding love of nature, adventure and the great world at large.” We at will be watching it for that alone! Alternatively, just check out Tanzania Odyssey website and book your own trip!

New Selous Accommodation with Serena Hotels

News on the Tanzania safari circuit is that the charismatic Serena Hotel group has taken over the operations and management of two new luxury properties in Tanzania. Both properties, the Mivumo River Lodge and the Selous Wildlife Lodge are located within Africa’s largest game reserve and a proclaimed world heritage site, the Selous Game Reserve in Southern Tanzania.

Set to open on July 15th 2009, the Mivumo River Lodge comprises 12 superior rooms and 3 premium luxury suites decorated in an elegant African style of a bygone era incorporating local materials from the region. Each superior room consists of a luxurious bedroom and lounge with a private balcony offering an indoor bathroom, outdoor shower and an intimate plunge pool. To ensure privacy and exclusivity, the rooms are spread out and strategically located along the mighty Rufiji River, all with magnificent views of the breathtaking Stiegler’s gorge... we look forward to giving you some personal reviews soon!

The lodge also offers full aromatherapy spa treatments, and a variety of activities including game viewing river cruises, exclusive guided walks, bush picnics, private game drives and sundowner river cruises. To complement the Mivumo River Lodge is the Selous Wildlife Lodge, a luxury tented camp unit located on the Eastern bank of the Simbazi River, a tributary of the Rufiji, is set to open on 1st August 2009.

The camp comprises 12 tents, each of which enjoys outstanding views of untouched wilderness, with scatterings of enormous trees and lush, dense vegetation. It has a dining area and guest lounge overlooking the natural watering hole which is also lit in the evenings for night game viewings. The accommodation here is enhanced by a good outside viewing deck and swimming pool. We will update the videoes to each of these as soon as we can take them - keep checking the Tanzania Odyssey video links.

lion vs hyena

Tanzania's Serengeti Plains

When it comes to national parks, Serengeti is simply the best. So much space. So many animals. The park itself is enormous - at least as big as Holland - its oceans of grass rimmed by immense horizons that make for a heady sense of freedom.The skies are always full of raptors; eagles, vultures, hawks and harriers. But it is the animals that catch the eye - in particular the mass movement of wildebeest and zebras and the presence of the big cats that prey on them. The migration is the greatest wildlife show on earth and it happens every year. But to see it you need to be in the right place at the right time. In the Serengeti even a million wildebeest can vanish in a matter of days, leaving nothing but an emptiness of dust and stubble.Rain is the engine that drives the Serengeti ecosystems, nourishing the grass, replenishing the waterholes. For the wildebeest, life is an endless journey in search of grass and water. Their year begins in the south of the park where the calves are born between January and March. But in May when the rains end, the land dries fast and the herds move on. Away they march, a million strong, pouring into the Western Corridor or heading deeper into the park.Some are taken by the giant crocodiles of the Grumeti River. Others fall prey to the famous Serengeti lions. But by the end of July the survivors have passed through the northern woodlands and crossed into Kenya, where they remain in the Masai Mara reserve, their dry season refuge, until the onset of the rains lures them south again in October.Wherever the action is, the park is well served with comfortable camps and lodges. Ndutu lodge, in the south, is ideally placed for the calving season and game drives among the granite inselbergs of the Gol Kopjes. Kirawira and Grumeti River are luxury camps in the Western Corridor. Serengeti Serena and Sopa lodges lie in the heart of the park, and Kleins Camp and Migration Camp in the north.
Article writen by Brian Jackman

On Safari in Tanzania

Africa makes sense of all that ecology-biodiversity-sustainable-habitat stuff that sounds so like the special pleading of socially inept, bearded weirdies when applied to a field in back-garden Britain. Here it has the depth and grace of a religious conviction

The Serengeti: under the lowering anvil nimbus, electric storms stutter on the horizon. The shimmering burnt-orange African sun plummets; a hot wind sways the social weavers’ intricately constructed nests in the whistling thorn. The heavy air vibrates with cooing of doves and the creaking-gate single note of the tropical boubou. High above, a pair of bateleur eagles catching a lazy late thermal precariously balance like their eponymous tightrope walkers. And over the undulating dry surf of grassland the game teems.

It teems and it teems. It teems from left to right and from right to left. It teems up and it teems down and it teems round and round until you are dizzy with teeming. Will this damn teeming never stop? The Serengeti game is divided into two teams: those that eat and those that are eaten. It is one enormous game of kiss- chase with biting. If you only know Africa you know. This is Attenborough country. The gnarly buzzcut acacias, the purple sky, the oily, pustulant sun that slides across the horizon, truncating the evening into 20 minutes of the most exotically beautiful light on earth.

The Serengeti stretches from northern Tanzania across the border into Kenya. This is where the annual migration of wildebeest takes place. Animals following the rains, pulling all the mint-sauce teams behind them. Wildebeest are God’s extras. Individually, they are odd, humpy creatures with long, mournful faces that seem to be continually muttering “Nobody knows the trouble I seen” under their breaths; collectively on the move at a stiff-legged canter, they are one of the great wonders of the world, making the Serengeti Cecil B De Mille Africa. A wildebeest’s only defence against the cruel market forces of a carnivorous world is statistics. There are so many of us, chances are it won’t be me. They even arrange to calve all at the same time in the same place, providing the lions and hyenas with the largest canapé smorgasbord in the world. Wildebeest are nature’s proof that communism works. It’s just not much fun. Their bones litter the plains.

The great grey-green greasy Grumeti river, all set about with fever trees, runs through the heart of the Serengeti. It is home to turgid pods of hippo and crocodile you could land small planes on. Each big enough to make a set of luggage that would comfortably take Joan Collins on a world cruise. Hippos look and sound like the House of Commons. Fat, self-satisfied gents with patronising smirks and fierce pink short-sighted eyes in wrinkled grey suits going “haw-haw” and telling each other dirty jokes. They sit like backbenchers in their soupy tearooms and defecate copiously, lifting their vast buttocks out of the water and spinning their tails like Magimixes. At night you lie awake and listen to them chunter and canvass outside the tent.

The Ngorongoro crater is other place you’ll know if you’ve only been to Africa by armchair. Seven thousand feet up, it is a volcano crater with more microclimates than you can shake a meteorologist at. A perfect soup bowl of game. In fact, Ngorongoro is Africa’s Mount Olympus of game. Purists with breath you could use for snakebite serum of the Outward Bound knit-your-own-bullet school tend to roll their malarial yellow eyes and harrumph like warthog farts at the mention of Ngorongoro, bellowing that it is Disneyland Soho on a Saturday night, St Tropez in July. And they have a point. It is the beaten trail. But then, imagine a life lived never having seen Disneyland or Soho or St Tropez and double it and double it again. The Ngorongoro crater fair takes your breath away. It is a spectacle. It makes The Lion King look like a song and dance. This is the real thing.

You will see a lot of other Toyota safari trucks. But the view at sunrise from Crater Lodge perched on the lip of the Volcano silences all criticism. And visitors too are a part of a safari’s rich ecology. Crater Lodge looks like Portmeirion designed by Danny La Rue and Puccini. A fabulously camp camp, a collection of individual ethnic petit palaces on stilts, where you get your own butler, savanna beds, a log fire and rose petals in your bath. It is the natural home of one of Africa’s most ubiquitous and photographed denizens, the honeymoon couple. I could sit and watch honeymooners for hours. They are endlessly fascinating and rewarding. The main reward being that I will never ever have to be on one of them again. Africa is perfect postnuptial ecosystem. It has danger, nature, adventure and the Tiffany of night skies. All the subliminal triggers for a really good “Me Tarzan, You Jane” sex life. For newlyweds, this is as good as having sex gets. A brief two weeks of libidinous malaria (sweating and shaking). Nothing in the world makes you feel younger, more alive, more fecund and vigorously, expansively free than other people’s honeymoon in Africa.

The problem, and it is a problem with safaris, is that many tourists get to see Africa, experience Africa, fire off enough film to garland an amphitheatre to prove that they’ve done Africa, but never actually set foot in Africa. They set from camp/lodge to converted long-wheelbased Land Rover without ever getting dust on their new Gore-Tex safari boots. Viewed from a truck, it is all as real and special and awe-inducing as most north-world people could ever want.

But looking through a window frame stutters the image into being a sort of stamp-collecting. You go in search of things: the big five (lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and Cape buffalo), a kill, a view. You find yourself asking endless questions like “What’s the gestation period of a Thompson gazelle?” “How far in kilometres will a hyena walk at night?” as if you are swotting for a Third World pub quiz. You record and tick things off in the anecdote album. Getting out and walking is a whole other thing altogether, the snapshots allied into a great rolling panorama. You stop being an invisible, omnipotent observer and take your place as apart of it. Both watcher and watched stalker and stalked. Meet it eye to eye. Danger is a big part of Africa’s turn-on. Travellers love travellers’ tales. The most commonly asked question is “Will it eat me?” And the guides have endless routines of blood-clotting stories. It’s all fun, but it misses the point. In the wildebeest’s statistics of danger, Africa is no more risky than most cities at night. “Will that bus eat me?” “Yes, if you stand in front of it.”

You either get the point of Africa or you don’t. What draws me back year after year is that it’s like seeing the world with the lid off. You can see the works, the intricate engineering, that fantastically complex and beautiful series of cogs and wheels and springs and checks and balances that makes the globe work. Africa makes sense of all that ecology-biodiversity-sustainable-habitat stuff that sounds so like the special pleading of socially inept, bearded weirdies when applied to a field in back-garden Britain. Here it has the depth and grace of a religious conviction.

So if you want to walk, you must, simply must go to the Selous, an area the size of Denmark, the largest untouched reserve in the world, named after the greatest of all white hunters a mythic figure who was the basis for Allan Quartermain. It is a vast area of thorn and cliff and sand and jungle, bisected and filigreed by the Rufiji river that runs through sand and cuts a new course after the rains every year, leaving behind lakes and deep gorges fringed with doum palms. Here is the world’s largest collection of hippo, of crocodile and elephant. It is home to some of the last wild black rhino and the biggest packs of wild dog.

Seen from the Sand Rivers camp on a bluff of sandstone, the river glides through a view that remains perfect and pristine for a decade of million years. You can camp out under mosquito nets on a dry river bed and listen to the great game being played out in the inky shadows, thrown by a moon as bright as a Wembley floodlight. You can count shooting stars around the ironwood fire. You can travel up rapids on little flat-bottomed boats, being chased by bull hippos like furious tugs, and cast for fearsomely aggressive tiger fish while watching for crocodiles, being both fisherman and bait. Or walk quietly and with the pounding heart of a peeping tom to watch elephants bathing. You can be one of the pitifully few people who have ever seen wild dog, the painted wolves of Africa, dappled patchwork resting in the shade of an acacia. Don’t think of any of this as frightening. It’s exciting. And if this all sounds like Mills & Boon travel writing, then I make no apology. I don’t know how to impart enthusiasm other than enthusiastically. But if you imagine it’s all too purple to be true, then fine. Stay at home. Nobody would be happier than me.

For westerners, Africa is a place that happens despite Africans. In all the yearning literature this place has spawned, the only indigenous characters are servants and bearers and extras – and that’s shaming. This is the one continent where travellers rarely say they want to meet the natives. Africans themselves spend precious little time enjoying or worrying about their game. The only giraffe most of them have time to care about is on their banknotes. But Tanzania in particular is a fantastically friendly and interesting human place, lively and complex. To come here and see only wilderness and animals is to see only half the story. In one-street towns there is an entrepreneurial imagination and energy that beggars Silicon Valley.

Stone Town is main town of Zanzibar, the Muslim island that was the centre of the Arab slave trade. Zanzibar is the island of cloves and ivory and it is where Livingstone and the other Victorian explorers began their treks into the mapless nothing. Built out of coral, the winding streets and courtyarded houses feel more North African than sub-Saharan. I sat in the English church that was built on the old slave market with the alter directly above its whipping post and listened to Anglican evensong in Swahili, “The Old Rugged Cross” sung with that unmistakeable mournful, soft sound of African voices.

Mnemba Island, off the coast of Zanzibar, isn’t actually Africa at all. It belongs to that other world of travel-brochure covers. I have never been anywhere that so completely encompasses every dream of the perfect desert island. You can walk round it in 20 minutes. It has just ten huts hidden in jungle. There is a bar and frankly miraculous food served on the beach by candlelight. It is always in the sunny 90s, but the coral-white sand never gets hot. The sea is the colour of Paul Newman’s eyes, and there is a reef within doggy-paddling distance. Nothing in the place stings or bites, and there are more laid-back staff than punters. All you ever wear is a kukoi, a sort of gown-up’s nappy. Indeed you regress into it.

After flopping about three days, I’d unstressed into a five-year-old. I became gurgling, smiley, supine, oily lump of wants and simple desires, moving from sun to shade like a happy, nutbrown maggot. Snorkelling over tropical coral reef is exactly like watching the cartoon channel with the sound turned down. Weightless, intellectually neutral colour and movement. In the other huts the sated honeymooners done Tarzanning in the bush lazily played mummies and daddies. In the eaves, doves’ coos beat the intro over and over. The tune preyed in the back of my memory. What was it? “The Mighty Quinn”? No. “Here We Go round the Mulberry Bush”? No. Finally I got it. It was “Swinging Safari”.

Reproduced from Travel intelligence, Article by AA Gill

Bilila Lodge Kempinski

Press release re Bilila Lodge Kempinski - April 2009

Bilila Lodge Kempinski, the most luxurious lodge in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, has unveiled a special opening offer – stay for three nights, pay for just two – to entice visitors to be among the first to stay in this idyllic new hideaway, which melds beautifully into the unspoilt Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The opening offer is valid from 1st June, the date that the hotel launches, till 30th September 2009, and rates start at 500 Euros for two people sharing per night inclusive of full board, 20% VAT and a 5% service charge.

As an added temptation, Bilila Lodge Kempinski’s sister hotel Zamani Zanzibar Kempinski is offering “seven nights for the price of five” over the same period, so that guests can enjoy the complete Tanzania package: the ultimate safari experience and a luxurious beach holiday on the exotic spice island of Zanzibar.

These two offers can be booked either on their own or together, but there are certain conditions attached, which are detailed below:

- Neither offer can be combined with other promotions of special offers, other than the ones stated here
- The offer is valid on new reservations only, with arrivals during the inclusive period, namely 1 June to 30 September 2009
- The offer is based on the room rate only and does not include extras, such as transfers from and to the airstrip, games drives etc.
- The offer is only valid on request and subject to availability.

With just 74 rooms (including two private villas), Bilila Lodge Kempinski perfectly combines the intimacy of a lodge and the facilities expected of a much larger hotel, such as several different dining options (indoor restaurant, poolside, moonlit barbecues in a traditional boma), an infinity pool overlooking the grasslands and a watering hole where wild animals come to drink, and an Anantara Spa.

Other public areas include a lounge, a bar, a wine cellar, a conference room accommodating up to 80 people, a library, a games room with full-size billiard table, a fitness centre, an art gallery and gift shops. All the guest rooms have luxury ensuite bathrooms, multimedia DVD players, over 50 satellite TV and radio channels, coffee/tea making facilities and a teak deck for relaxing while watching game (personal telescope included); suites have their own private plunge pool.

Due to strict building controls in the National Park, this will be the largest lodge ever built in the Serengeti, but, as expected of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Lodge has been built in keeping with the landscape.

Not only does the arc-shaped building follow the natural contours of the land, but as far as possible only local materials have been used in its construction to ensure that it blends into its surrounds. For example, over a million traditional “chelewa” brooms have been used to create the thatched roof and the stone for the walls was sourced from nearby Mugumu. The interiors also reflect the natural colours of the African landscape, with the work of local artists adding colourful highlights.

Bilila Lodge Kempinski is located in the Central North of the Serengeti National Park, in an untouched part of the Park where the hotel will have its own private game drives. The hotel is a 45-minute drive from the Seronera airstrip, which in turn is a 50-minute flight from Arusha, the nearest international airport, into which KLM currently flies on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Airlines such as SWISS, Emirates, British Airways, South African Airways and Qatar fly into either Nairobi or Dar-es-Salaam, from where connecting flights to Arusha can be picked up.

Game report from Ruaha (Feb 2009)

The rains have broken over the Ruaha! What was near desert, over a period of a few days has turned into lush woodland
with scattered green grass meadows. Dry sunny mornings are the norm with massive cloud build up during the day
climaxing in a late afternoon downpour drenching the sun baked earth. The Ruaha has come alive! The trees and bushes
have sprung into action producing leaves and flowers turning the whole park from a dull brown to every shade of green
possible.
Perhaps the most rewarding time to visit a park is during this transitional phase, to see the emergence of creatures rarely
seen in the dry season, and to witness the change in general animal behavior as a sense of relief seems to flood over them.
Suddenly there is food and energy to spare shown by the impala as they pronk and bound around for no apparent reason!
We have also seen the return of most of our migrant birds, some of which come from as far away as the Russian Steppes to
escape the harsh Northern winters, many however come from other areas within Africa. The most noticeable of these are
the cuckoos, several species, which start arriving anytime from October and proceed to wreak havoc among other birds
lives as they fly from nest to nest laying their superbly similar eggs in to the nests of other unsuspecting species ultimately
dooming the family. On hatching, the tiny seemingly helpless cuckoos are anything but. After usually hatching first, the
little cuckoo chick instinctively roll the other eggs out of the nest destroying them below, removing all future competition
concentrating all the adopted parents efforts solely on the one cuckoo. Should the intruder hatch after the hatching of
other chicks he is equip with a hook on the beak tip to dispatch his future rivals.
Several species off bee-eater have also returned to Ruaha, surely the most handsome family of birds in Africa. With such
vibrant colours, the bee-eaters can turn most people into avid bird watchers the minute they sight their first one as they
scythe through the air in search of their insect prey and land on a nearby branch to devour it allowing close approaches.
Dozens of new raptor species are frequently spotted, again some of these birds coming from as far away as Russia to take
advantage of food bonanza the rains bring.
The Amur falcons have returned in their thousands and vast flocks of these birds are often seen over the camp after a
shower of rain to cash in on the emerging termites which escape the mounds in their millions after heavy rain. The huge
spur winged geese and bizarre knob billed ducks although present in Ruaha throughout the year have been joined by
numerous others and are now are in huge numbers littered all over the park and can be seen on every pan and waterhole.
It is it this time of year when Ruaha comes into its own and lives up to its expectations of being one of the greatest bird
paradises in Africa.
Lions are still heard on most nights and are still wandering through the camp once a week or so. Festo located a pride of
15 lion all together resting the day away along the banks of the Ruaha river. Leopard as always is a lucky sighting but we are
expecting an increase as many moved away as the bush started to thin out in the dry season.
One species which will always be present in the Jongomero area is our elephants. With several herds being sighted a day
sometimes in the dry season, we are still getting good numbers of these creatures even now. A female elephant or baby has
not been seen for over a month, but all the boys are now beginning to congregate in to large herds and are often spotted in
our area or more often than not, within the camp itself. The best sighting of last month had to be our resident cranky rogue
bull Kingo return to Jongomero with 20 of his friends in tow. After spending most of the day in the camp and putting on a
great show in front of the main area, Kingo who was very well behaved led them all away again.
The buffalos have moved away from the area but with a bit of effort, herds of up to a few hundred can still be seen in the
open areas further North of Jongomero.
General game as always is still in good supply, most drives come back with frequent sightings of most other species. Giraffe
are still bountiful and one drive returned last week with having seen over a hundred! Greater kudus, probably the most
handsome of all antelope are still being seen almost daily together with Zebras, Waterbuck, Bushbuck, hippos, Dik-Diks,
Duikers, Mongoose, Crocs, Jackals, Bat-Eared Foxes and of course, the ubiquitous Impala whom have just calved and their
tiny youngsters can be seen bounding round all over.
As well as all the big stuff, as always time must be devoted to the no less important smaller little things which scamper
around contributing to Ruaha uniqueness. It has been a long wait for the environmentally vital dung beetles and evidence
for this could be seen by the huge piles of dung covering the park. Within a couple of weeks it has all been cleaned up by
these industrious little workers as they squabble over the fresh dung and fashion it into elegant balls to roll away and
hopefully attract a mate on the way. A horrible job but some one has to do it! Dung beetles return vast quantities of
nutrients back into the soil making them one of Africa’s most important, indispensable little creatures. Velvet mites look as
if they are covered in pure red velvet and if there ever was a visually stunning “bug”, this is it. Never seen in the dry, these
animals are mostly underground where they feed on subterranean termites, as soon as the first rains fall, literally billions
emerge from the soil to mate, in some areas the whole ground can take on an almost red sheen and to walk without
standing on one is almost impossible. They then disappear as quick as they appear and we must wait for this time next year
to see them again. Some extraordinary species of snake have began also to make an appearance, the most notable of course
being the African Rock Python and several youngsters have been found near the camp. Mother has not as yet made an
appearance but a 15 foot Python was spotted by friends of ours in another area of the park!
The elephant shrews are up to their usual tricks and several are seen in the camp each night and on occasion keep up the
odd guest with their constant leg drumming to attract mates. However many of them are now accompanied by a few tiny
babies in tow.
As usual, another good couple of months game wise and without doubt my favorite time of year to be in the African bush.
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year, and all the best for a good year ahead! Andrew Mollinaro

Pemba, the great escape off Zanzibar

reproduced from the Sunday Times 4 January 2009
by Lionel Shriver

The scent of cloves on the breeze, deserted white sand beaches, snorkelling off the coral reef ...

As Sartre would agree, for contemporary travellers hell is other tourists. As my greying, long-haired hotelier in Stone Town despaired, Zanzibar 15 years ago was “a paradise”, yet now mills with sandy, sunburnt Europeans in flip-flops, clutching bottled water.

Kindred riffraff hold up an unwelcome mirror, for other tourists are an embarrassing reminder of what we ourselves look like.

Thus real luxury tourism requires an extra layout of time, effort and dosh to ensure that you do not bring with you half the population of Dulwich. For stalwarts willing to hop three different planes, slump through two charmless layovers in grotty African airports with no AC, board a minivan and then catch a speedboat, paradise is still on offer.

A stomach-churning half-hour plane ride in a 20-seater from Stone Town’s airport, Pemba lies 50 miles northeast of Zanzibar. About half a million, mostly Muslim, Tanzanians inhabit this leafy, lumpy island, which is bursting with gargantuan papaya, jackfruit and mango trees, like the set of Jurassic Park. Locals survive by subsistence farming of cassava and plantains, as well as from harvesting Pemba’s one famous cash crop: cloves.

It was the clove connection that first attracted me. Maybe I betray my weakness for pumpkin pie, but when my companion on this trip first told me about an island permeated by the aroma of cloves, I had to go. Thus when a minivan picked us up at Pemba’s airport in Chake Chake, I strained out of the windows with petulant sniffs.

Yes, the tin-roofed houses of red clay and sticks were picturesque. Women in bright kangas and men on bicycles with baskets of fish were agreeable reminders that I had finally ventured further afield from my London flat than Borough High Street. But where was the perfume of cloves?

At last, as the van drew toward the southern port of Mkoani, mats spread with a spiky brown nubble lined every verge. In town, hilariously, swathes of cloves were spread to dry not only down the road’s meridian, but out on the tarmac, where cars and cycles crunched across the crop.

The van infused with the smell of hot whisky. Pay dirt. That jar of umber nails in my spice cabinet would never seem the same again. If nothing else, when I next mull wine I will wash them first.

The island has a few primitive hotels and diving hostels, but there’s really only one place to stay on Pemba.

Granted, it’s pricey. But even in its low-end hillside huts, £205pp per night includes meals and booze; for that price in New York City, you’d be lucky to get a single bed at the Y and a Nathan’s hot dog. Unless you’re clinging to youthful bohemian pretensions, which I long ago swapped for a hot shower and some assurance that nobody would steal my laptop, after all the bother getting there, you might as well spring for Fundu Lagoon

Fundu’s speedboat dropped us on the jetty. Thatched in coconut palm, tasteful tented accommodations lined a beach of the kind of fine, white sand used in hotel ashtrays, before a sea of such a surreal aqua that it looked Photoshopped.

At first glance, the vista resembled those mendacious panoramas in travel brochures that, in reality, prove upholstered in edge-to-edge beach towels, where vendors hawk bad, melting ice cream, and droves of paunchy fellow nationals in loud swimsuits wish you weren’t here, either.

Yet this lagoon’s coastline is pristinely underpopulated. Even in the height of the summer wedding season, with a mere 18 units, Fundu can grow only so crowded. Sporting three bars, an entertainment room, three lounges, two restaurants and five different places to kick off your shoes in your own encampment, it is one of the last beach resorts on earth where you can get away from other people.

From the first day, I countered sunstroke with sidestroke at sunset and, aside from the odd local fisherman poling a hollowed-log canoe called a mtumbwi, I had, it seemed, the Indian Ocean to myself.

Fundu’s amiable management is well aware that paradise is intrinsically dull, and tries to keep the programme moving. Barbecues on the beach (with a whole red snapper the size of a small whale) and Swahili dinners on the jetty (chopped cassava leaves, seafood in coconut milk) help to keep the tedium of overeating haute cuisine to a minimum.

Numerous diversions undercut the insidious enervation of hedonism. Though Fundu offers diving, including for beginners, the snorkelling on the coral reef off Misali island is sufficiently top-notch to skip the cumbersome gear. A morning’s speedboat plough through pods of spinner dolphins was well spent; these beguilingly undersized dolphins throw themselves into the air and twirl: maritime break dancing. Yet, in truth, the best entertainment at Fundu is a good book.


Two resident Balinese pros provide massages, but be prepared to strip down to ballooning disposable plastic nappies, the most humiliating garment I’ve worn in my life. Facials and body scrubs employ the better part of the pantry — turmeric and yogurt, mango and brown sugar, coffee and Dead Sea salt — all a bridge too far for me, having got over the urge to smear dinner all over my face by the age of three.

Fundu keeps a full-time local staff of 140, giving the resort a much higher than usual help-to-guest ratio: when a step splintered on the pathway, management didn’t leave a sign, but an entire employee. Unless they’re lucky enough to work for the resort, most Wapemba earn about £1.50 a day.

Yet if Fundu’s staff feel justly contemptuous of westerners who lavish £60 on a “banana-leaf body cocoon”, they keep the disdain under wraps. Supporting a school for villagers and planning to build a clinic as well, Fundu gives a huge boost to the island’s economy, and its employees seem to take pride in an operation more than one proclaimed “the best hotel in Africa”.

Far more stimulating than Fundu’s near-desperate provision of amusement is a dander through the mainland. A “spice tour” amounts to little more than a shuffle around an enterprising local’s back garden, but especially for cooks it’s interesting to see vanilla pods dangling on the branch, or cinnamon bark still on the tree.

Likewise, at the market in Chake Chake, the culinarily inclined should be sure to stock up on cardamom, cloves and black peppercorns for back home, all with five times the potency of their desiccated counterparts at your local supermarket.

When I first visited rural Africa in 1972, white people were a novelty. Villagers in the remote Kenyan highlands would reach out to touch my ash-blonde hair with amazement. Yet by the time I lived in Kenya, 20 years later, palefaces were just walking dollar signs, and every stroll collected 25 urchins with their hands out and a dozen hawkers foisting ungainly carved-elephant key chains.

Pemba is different. Folks actually say hello to be friendly, and not because they want your watch. On our stroll through Mkoani, the only local who half-heartedly tried to sell us anything was a vendor with fresh fish. Two white women on their own would have suffered more sexual harassment in Brighton. Wapemba have seen tourists before, but we still elicit bemused curiosity. While most interaction comprised a simple “Jambo! Habari?”, a few locals know enough English to converse.

One jovial gentleman informed us that Wapemba don’t, themselves, use cloves in cooking. The buds are medicinal, regarded as an aphrodisiac — or, as he put it with a wink, “good for home affairs”. But get to Pemba quick, because if the small children screaming down at us from one hillside are any guide (in unison, “GIVE US YOUR MO-O-NEY!”), the upcoming generation will be on the hustle.

Since my friend and I are incurably heterosexual, our last night’s romantic dinner for two on our private beach was sadly wasted: an enormous seafood grill, cosily lit with glowing paraffin lanterns. Within minutes those lanterns had drawn a billow of micro-midges — less like insects than bad weather.

We tried to be appreciative while flapping napkins over the lobster and prising crawling protein from our eyes. Alas, once the lanterns were out, the animate dust storm headed to our tent, readily penetrating the beds’ mosquito net-ting. While a shot of Raid felled the creatures, their raining dead bodies crumbled across the sheets all night.

But that was all right. We were in Africa, and great white hunters still have to bag trophies of some sort.

reproduced from the Sunday Times 4 January 2009

Safari in the Selous

In the green floodplain of the Luwego River, three crested francolins strutted to and fro. For a few moments, these birds became the most important things in my life and I watched their every move, breathless with tension.

Beyond the francolins lay the reason why I could hear my own heart pounding. The twitching ears and curved white horns of 30 buffaloes moved among the tall elephant grass. They grazed serenely, unaware of the human beings sneaking up on them.

But if those francolins saw us and sounded the alarm, the game would be up. How the half-ton beasts would then react to our presence was impossible to predict.

It seemed incredible that they had not spotted us. The buffaloes were so close that I could hear them tearing at the grass and pawing the ground.

My nose could even faintly detect their musty stench. If I could smell them, how could they not smell me?

The answer was that Anton Turner, my guide, had expertly kept us downwind of the herd. Minutes earlier, while still a safe distance away from the buffaloes, Anton had given a whispered briefing. “Buffalo have a reputation for being dangerous because of how they behave when they’re wounded. In this situation, 99 per cent of the time, they’ll just run if they see us. But if we are charged, you’re not going to be able to outrun them. Just lie down and keep as flat as you can. Then the buffalo might run around you. And make sure you stay behind my gun.”

Anton was carrying a Remington rifle loaded with six heavy-calibre rounds. It could take every one of those bullets to bring down a buffalo – and the herd was at least 30 strong.

Thankfully, there was no time to think about the manifold possibilities of disaster. Within moments, I was staring at the francolins and rapidly concluding that we were not going to fool them and the buffaloes at the same time.

Sure enough, the birds saw us. With high-pitched cries of alarm, they darted into the air; even the hiss of their beating wings seemed as loud as thunder. I braced for the reaction of the buffaloes, my heart beating faster still. Would they charge us or run away?

Astonishingly, they did neither. Their menacing horns and giant heads, with moist, flaring nostrils, carried on moving in the high grass, only 50 feet or so ahead. Nothing changed. The herd continued grazing sedately.

Anton led us closer still. Walking silently through long grass, I discovered, is impossible. You brush past green blades, stir up dead leaves and crunch on twigs. Each sound we made seemed cacophonous.

We were only about 30 feet away from the nearest buffalo and still they had not seen us. By now, I could make out the full outline of their jet-black bodies with flicking tails. I could see sweat glistening on muscles rippling beneath their hides.

Then, finally, the inevitable happened. A twig cracked and the herd saw us. The buffaloes raised their heads with sudden snorts and jerks of alarm and stared towards us. We stood stock still – and so did they.

This staring match lasted a matter of seconds, but seemed to crawl by like minutes. A few buffaloes edged curiously towards us, their horns held high. Would they charge?

Then, as if reacting to a silent signal, they broke and fled as one. The next few moments passed in a blur of movement and extreme, heart-pounding tension. The buffaloes stampeded away to my left, hooves pounding and nostrils flaring.

Then, as if from nowhere, another unmistakable animal appeared only 50 feet away. Without any warning, a fully grown lioness stood in front of me. She turned and leapt over a small stream, presenting an unforgettable mid-air silhouette of raw power, and then bounded away. In a split second, the lioness disappeared into the undergrowth, while the buffaloes fled across the floodplain.

My next thoughts had all the urgency that fear brings. We had not been the only ones stalking the buffaloes. Unseen by us, the lioness must have been hunting the herd.

If so, she would not have been alone. What about the rest of the pride? Anton soon found the reason for the lioness’s presence. A disembowelled warthog, with its purple intestines bulging onto the ground, lay exactly where the lioness had materialised. She had been guarding a kill. And she had, it seemed, been alone.

This episode taught me more about wildlife – and packed in far more emotional intensity – than any number of previous safaris. The unique exhilaration of tracking big game on foot while in your own expanse of African wilderness is the experience offered by the Selous Project in southern Tanzania.

Anton, a former British Army officer who co-founded the project, takes you on long treks across Selous Game Reserve, searching for elephants, buffaloes and lions. Instead of being driven around in a white Land Rover in the Serengeti or the Maasai Mara, where you are likely to share your pride of lions with a dozen other vehicles, you spend most of your time on foot, enjoying an intense, individual encounter with true wilderness.

Selous Game Reserve is little known outside Tanzania, yet it covers 21,000 square miles – an area bigger than Switzerland – making it the largest wildlife sanctuary in the world. The Selous Project’s concession embraces 300,000 acres of rugged bush along the Luwego and Lukula rivers. Until last year, this was a hunting area. All the neighbouring concessions are still used for this purpose.

But Anton and his partners in Great Plains Conservation, a company specialising in ecotourism, are trying a new model to replace hunting. The idea is for small groups of visitors to stalk big game on foot – and shoot the animals with cameras, not guns. Only eight guests can stay in the concession at any given time. So these safaris are high-value, low-volume and low-impact affairs. In this way, all the advantages of the hunting model are replicated while the crucial downside is removed: no animals are killed.

“We track the animals and get as close to them as we can. The only things we’re not doing are selecting a trophy and pulling the trigger,” explained Anton. These words carry particular authority because he was once a professional hunter. After leaving the Army as a captain, he led hunting expeditions across Tanzania.

But Anton, 37, has resolved never to hunt again. “I never want to shoot another lion,” he said. “I’ve been through the hunting business and, as a form of interaction with the environment, hunting is very pure. But I’m not sure that hunting has delivered the conservation gains it once did.”

The case for hunting rests on two pillars: money and conservation. With clients willing to pay huge sums to shoot big game, hunting provides a powerful incentive for conserving wildlife. But Anton believes this is changing. The rising cost of licences and fees has made Tanzania an expensive destination for those who shoot big game. “Hunting today is a model that is under pressure,” he said. “The government wants more money out of it, so it has raised block fees and trophy fees to the point where Tanzania is becoming uncompetitive compared to elsewhere in Africa.”

And the more the client pays, the more he demands. In theory, strict quotas limit the number of animals each hunting area is allowed to kill. In practice, these rules are impossible to enforce. The authorities will never know how many lions or elephants have been shot in a remote concession.

It is down to hunting companies to play by the rules. But their clients are often determined to shoot whatever species they want. Those from Russia and the Arab world have particularly bad reputations.

If that client wants a lion trophy, he will go home with one, no matter what. If the quota has been used up, this will not prevent an unscrupulous client from shooting the next male lion he sees. And if he comes across a more handsome specimen on a later outing, he will probably shoot that lion as well.

This behaviour destroys the conservation argument for hunting.

Instead, the future of conservation may lie in photographic safaris, where small groups of visitors spend most of their time on foot with minimal impact on the environment. “The acid test of all this is conservation. The big, long-term objective is to make sure this area is still wild in 50 years’ time,” said Anton.

His camp beside the Luwego has only four tents, equipped with twin beds and en suite bathrooms. These have elaborate bucket showers, topped up with hot water at your command. Meals are served in the main tent – which Anton, in true military fashion, called “the mess” – where golden lanterns light up rugs spread across the ground, in the style of an Arab sheikh’s retreat.

On most expeditions, Anton’s chief tracker, Abadiba Karibai, leads the way. If he ever leaves the wilderness, Abadiba could write a book on the secrets of a long and healthy life. At 72, he has been tracking big game since 1961 – and he looks like an exceptionally fit 55-year-old.

When we stalked the buffaloes, Abadiba was at the head of our column carrying a grey sock stuffed with ash. Every now and then he checked the direction of the wind by shaking the sock and releasing a puff of ash. In this way, he kept us downwind of the buffaloes’ nostrils.

Abadiba has survived being charged by lions no fewer than five times. Twice, he was armed only with a bow and arrow – and once he managed to fight off three lions with this flimsy weapon. “I shot one lion with an arrow. Then I had one lion here on my left and one on my right,” Abadiba told me. “They were too close to shoot. So I pushed an arrow into the mouth of one lion. After that, they both ran.”

Despite the reassurance offered by Abadiba and Anton, their expeditions are not for the faint-hearted. Approaching big game on foot will always be risky, and it demands a degree of physical robustness. If a river stands between you and the buffaloes, you simply wade through it, hoping that no crocodiles lurk nearby.

A typical stay in Anton’s Lukula concession will probably involve leaving the main camp for a three-day walk, staying in “fly camps” and marching for three hours at a time through rugged bush, under the intense rays of the African sun.

As Selous Game Reserve is so vast, the animals are widely dispersed. On foot, you cover less ground and, inevitably, see less wildlife, one of the disadvantages of this kind of safari. The lioness beside the herd of buffalo was the only big cat I saw in a week. In the Maasai Mara, you may share your lions with dozens of onlookers, but you will probably see them more.

And all kinds of logistical cock-ups are possible on three-day expeditions. On the first day of our walk the vehicle taking us to the starting point broke down. At nightfall, we had not reached the first fly camp. We could not contact the people at the camp because the radios had failed. A second vehicle that would have taken us to the camp also broke down.

So we ended up sleeping on a canvas tarpaulin spread on the bare earth. A large fire, carefully stoked all night, served as our protection from lions. This was a cock-up, pure and simple. But it also left us sleeping under the stars in the middle of a great wilderness.

As such, it was a perfect African experience.

Seeing the Serengeti on foot

I first meet Richard Knocker on a grass airstrip in Ndutu in Tanzania’s Serengeti Plain where my twin prop has to circle low to clear out the giraffes before landing. He has the reputation of being among the best guides on the continent, which is the reason why I’m here. In an era in which the expert is everything – the yoga guru, the cult ski teacher, the personal travel concierge – I am intrigued that the guide may be becoming more important than the lodging, which has mostly dominated the high-end safari scene.

So here I am, on a six-day walking safari with Knocker in and around Loliondo, a 1,500-sq-mile block of wilderness east of Serengeti National Park in a remote pocket of northern Tanzania. Specifically, we spend most of our time in Piyaya, Masai ancestral lands visited by few outsiders and where there are no permanent commercial lodges. We move our camp twice, our light canvas tents and supplies transported separately by jeep. We wander into the landscape with just a guide, scout, and rifle. There’s also no curfew, meaning we can explore by 4x4 at night.

Knocker, I hope, is the man for the job. As soon as I meet him, it’s clear he’s got charisma. Tall and sun-battered, the 45-year-old Knocker reminds me of a better-looking John Cleese. Sometimes shy, he turns out to be witty and well read in politics, fiction, and popular science. Born in Kenya to English parents, he was educated in Britain. He has been guiding for almost 20 years.

Setting out into the bush, Knocker tells me about the gait of the giraffe. Unlike a horse, he explains, it moves its left legs together, then its right, in an almost comical two-step. I’m only half listening, staring at a hyena skulking through the undergrowth. Knocker is smiling. He’s perfectly at ease, bounding here and there as vultures, secretary birds, and Caspian plovers variously swoop in, all of which he points out with an irresistible enthusiasm.

As we walk out on to the plain, I am overwhelmed. At a guess we see more than 100,000 wildebeest in the first 45 minutes. This is the middle of the migration, when the Serengeti’s wildebeest population is passing through. We see lions satiated beside a kill. Hyenas are lazing close by, their heads dripping blood. Yet it’s not the animals that have gripped me, not at first, but the clouds skimming over the plain, their shadows creating a dramatic, menacing sense of pace, belittling everything beneath them. I have never felt more irrelevant.

That first night, we turn in early, tired from the long journey, under a carpet of bright stars. Yet I am unable to sleep. The ground rumbles with hoofed thunder as herds move around us. I hear cats, the screams of prey, and lost calves calling for their mothers. I am exposed. This is raw, immersive stuff and lying in my tent, I discover my torch is dead. It’s still pointing toward the hole where the zippers don’t quite meet. I take a sleeping pill. I’m in the wilderness with a man I just met who tells me that tomorrow we will go on a Moses walk. “You know, like the parting of the seas,” Knocker had said before we went to bed.

I’ve thought about that all night. I still have no idea what he means.

Trust is a fragile relationship. You can see it in the behaviour of the animals. When you approach in a vehicle, they generally don’t run; they haven’t developed fear of a steel cocoon. But approach on foot and even the biggest cats usually flee. Africa’s wildlife has lived alongside herders for thousands of years. The Masai spear lions as proof of valour. Wander onto a plain packed with grazing wildebeests and the animals gently shift to your left and right. It’s what Knocker meant when he referred to the Moses walk, the act of quietly moving through thousands of wildebeests and gazelles. There’s poetry to it — the stares of the heavy-headed wildebeests, the swirls of birds like tumbling schools of fish. It is intense, confounding, and good to do on the first day. It teaches you who you can trust and who trusts you.

That same morning Knocker takes me to the site of a kill near our camp.

It’s still early, before the day’s thermals have carried the vultures high into the sky. There is blood on the acacia where a lion has pulled a wildebeest into the shade, the red mixed with mud from the recent rains. Hyenas, the can-openers whose work is required before lesser predators are able to get their fill, have cracked the bones into splinters. Now a score of vultures is picking over the remains; they eat more meat in this ecosystem than land-based predators, devouring a quarter of their own body weight in minutes. There are vultures with their Elizabethan ruffs and plumped-up feathered thighs and marabou storks, which look like undertakers. Only the brain remains among the bones.

It doesn’t take long to see what Knocker is up to. He is showing me the pecking order in Africa. He is also encouraging me to understand the difference between being vulnerable, which is respectful of the wildlife, and being scared. It is why when we come up close beside an elephant three days in, Knocker stands beside me, speaking quietly, taking care to explain how the animal behaves. I’m grateful he still remembers how it feels to confront fear.

Johnny Lulu, our local scout, is carrying a .458 Winchester Magnum. He stands between me and the animal – a five- or six-ton bull elephant that eats as much as 650lb a day. Lulu is cool, serene. But his grey-green eyes are watching.

Not so long ago, on safari in another part of Tanzania, Lulu came across an elephant that began following the group’s scent. “I had no other choice. When I turned around, it was coming straight for us,” he recounts. “I knew what was happening, my family has hunted elephant for a long time. Flapping ears and a trunk on the ground, that’s a mock charge. But if an elephant comes at you with its ears back and trunk completely rolled, then it means it. And they move fast. So I did what I had to do. It dropped. It was hard, but essential. The other elephants, 12 in all, surrounded it and didn’t move.”

They say elephants mourn. I can believe it. Standing that close to a bull, with its slow and measured blink, does something to your head. “Lions have their own myth,” whispers Knocker, “but elephants up close, it’s something spiritual.” I am beginning to understand better what this is all about: To do this kind of safari, you have to completely trust the expertise of those you’re with.

Total surrender, I suppose. Only then will you start to connect.

As I relax, I begin to understand Knocker’s instinctive empathy for wildlife and the way he gauges an animal’s state of mind as we approach. “We should be privileged observers,” he says. And not just because the animals can be dangerous. They’re letting us into their territory.

I feel this most acutely during the lion walk. We’re lying low on rocky outcrop, a kopje, the mounds of granite that litter the plain and are often topped by fig trees. Opposite, some 50 yards away, is a lioness and her cub. I can see the colour of her eyes and, through binoculars, the pink of the cub’s nose. When we move too suddenly, they begin to pace with suspicion.

Knocker asks us to retire. To disturb their equilibrium is not our right. “What is crucial, what is fundamental to our approach,” he explains, “is lightness in everything we do.”

We walk for hours, Knocker allowing me to experience the bush at close quarters in a way that is simply impossible by vehicle. I hear whistling thorn, so called because the trees sing when the wind blows through small holes in their bulbous growths. I learn about the southern ground hornbill, “a pickaxe with a brain,” says Knocker, which is one of the leopard tortoise’s predators. I handle obsidian, or volcanic glass, used as tools by early bushmen, and I pick up blister beetles with zany exteriors that resemble Ziggy Stardust suits.

From a blue flower I squeeze water that works as eyedrops, and I observe coupled dung beetles rolling tennis balls of muck that they bury and use to feed their young. We spend 20 minutes examining a single milkweed. Watching a monarch butterfly lay her egg, we find a caterpillar on the same plant. “A whole life cycle on a single bush,” Knocker remarks.

This is a man as enthralled by minutiae as he is by the rare sight of a zorilla, the African skunk. He spots one on a night drive. Meanwhile I’m staring at a moving row of eyes, thousands of red pupils reflecting the lights from our Jeep. It’s the wildebeest, moving past like traffic leaving Manhattan on a Friday night. I breathe it in. Remember this, I say to myself: it will be among the most magnificent moments of your life.

By Sophy Roberts - The FT - October 18 2008

Picasa photos

New this month - our techies have been creating albums in Google Picasa for most of the Tanzania Lodges. Please see http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/tanzaniaodyssey.com

Wildebeest Migration

The annual migration of herds in Northern Tanzania and Kenya is one of the world's most spectacular wildlife events. Often referred to as the ‘Greatest Show on Earth', The Great Migration is a movement of approximately 1.5 million wildebeest and zebra throughout the Serengeti and Masai Mara ecosystems.

Despite the wealth of maps and illustrations showing the path of the migrating herds, as with anything in Nature, the actual day to day pattern is unpredictable. At Tanzania Odyssey we have studied and planned itineraries to fit in with the moving herds for over ten years, but cannot hope to say exactly where they will be next year! If your wish is to safari at the heart of The Great Migration, it is advisable to book a mobile tented safari that will ascertain camping grounds close to departure date.

In order to help illustrate where the migration is likely to be in any month please click on the link for the Wildebeest Migration Map which was created by tagging a number of wildebeest in 2004

The world's 10 sexiest hotel rooms?

reprinted from the Sunday Times - August 17, 2008

2 BANDA 5 Beho Beho, Tanzania

You can’t help feeling for the honeymooners who come to Beho Beho. How, in the rest of their married lives, will they ever equal the lubricious thrill of staying here? You’re in a grand banda, a huge thatched cottage with polished flagstone floors, exquisite antique furniture, an open-air stone shower and a vast, crisp-linened, muslin-draped bed.

Best of all, the front is completely open, giving an enormous view over a valley where giraffes, impalas, lions and leopards roam. It’s an irresistibly sexy cocktail of drama, luxury and an edge of danger - in theory, there’s nothing to stop those leopards dropping in for a midnight snack.

In practice, they stay well clear, though the elephants sometimes parade past on their way for a drink from the swimming pool. There are just eight bandas: go for number five for that out-in-the-wilds feel. A four-night break starts at £2,319pp, full-board, with flights; 020 7471 8780, www.tanzaniaodyssey.com

Tanzania: Tips for First-Timers

Tanzania: Tips for First-Timers
June 24, 2008

Fodor's editor Alexis Kelly had always dreamed of going to Africa— so as the editor of the first edition of Fodor's The Complete African Safari Planner, taking a trip to Tanzania seemed like a no-brainer. Here she shares her experience of visiting Africa for the first time, as well as some of the tips she learned while traveling.

Why Tanzania?
I picked Tanzania because it has great game, great parks, luxury accommodations, and beautiful beach destinations. Until recently it was also cheaper and less visited than its neighbor to the north. Since the violence that occurred in December in Kenya, Tanzania may be more expensive than Kenya, but it's safe, beautiful, and open for business. It's also home to some of the most coveted tourist destinations in the world: Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Zanzibar, the Rift Valley, Lake Victoria, Tanganyika, and Mt. Kilimanjaro.

What game did you see?
Lions and elephants and hippos, oh my! We saw it all (except for rhinos and leopards) and wanted more. You really never tire of seeing the animals. On one drive, we came upon three lionesses just milling about, so we stopped and watched them as they rested and played without paying attention to us. At one point our truck was surrounded on three sides by the lions, but I think it was the shade, not us, that interested them. Another time we came upon the revolting yet extremely fascinating sight of a male lion right after had he killed a giraffe. I loved watching the giraffes drinking, the weaver birds flying in mass unison, and the hippos lounging in the water. I also became obsessed with seeing baobab trees and termite mounds; both are a sight to be seen.

Where did you stay?
I stayed at some amazing places. The first was at the Souk in the Slipway complex (www.slipway.net) in Dar es Salaam. It was a great place for an overnight before we left for our first camp. The rooms were basic and clean, perfect for jet lag recovery. The Slipway has four restaurants, a supermarket, and a great craft market—we did most of our shopping there, on the first night! It's self-contained so you don't have to worry about wandering around Dar in a sleep deprived state. The next day we flew to the Selous Game Reserve, where we stayed at the Selous Safari Camp (www.selous.com). Talk about a once in a lifetime experience. We were feet from the shores of the lake that the camp borders. Our tent was right out of my dreams—canvas and mesh walls surrounded the raised platform where we slept. We showered under the open sky, washed our hands in brass basins from India, and slept on exquisite linens. The camp isn't fenced in, so there were animals everywhere. It was amazing.

Next we flew to Ruaha National Park for a few nights at Jongomero Camp, which is situated on the banks of the Jongomero Sand River. Also owned by the Selous Safari Camp, Jongomero has a sleepy feeling that immediately lulls you into a comfortable, relaxed state. The tents line the banks of the river. Though the river was dry while I was there, the riverbed is a busy thoroughfare for animals; hippos and elephants were always walking by the tent during the night to feed and cross the riverbed. The furniture is repurposed from the wood of old dhows (traditional fishing vessels) found in Dar es Salaam.

After Jongomero, we flew to Zanzibar for a little R&R. We stayed at Rus Nungwi (www.rasnungwi.com), a beach resort on the northern tip of Zanzibar. Ras Nungwi is a favorite among more active travelers, who might enjoy the diving, snorkeling, fishing, and kayaking on offer. The thatched cottages are cool and inviting, while the mosquito netting gives off a breezy casual feeling that pervades the gardens, lounge areas, and dhow tours.

The last stop was Stone Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Zanzibar's main hub. We stayed at Beyt al Chai (www.stonetowninn.com), in Kelele Square across from the Zanzibar Serena Inn, around the corner from the dining and shopping near Forodhani Gardens and the Old Fort. The hotel, an old tea house, has thick walls and small shuttered windows, typical of the local architecture, to keep the rooms cool. Four-posted canopy beds draped in mosquito netting complete the cool atmosphere. A masai guide guards the door and escorts you where you'd like to go, though it felt fairly safe to walk to the gardens.

What would you do differently if you could take the trip again?
I would stay longer. Nine days is not long enough to feel settled or really get the feel of a place. I could have spent a whole week going out on game drives, boat safaris, or guided walks. The ideal trip length is really 2-3 weeks and you should plan three nights at each camp, if possible. You should also try to stay in different types of camps and terrain so you get the feel of different parts of the country. Where Selous Safari camp was lush and flat, Jongomero was dry and hilly.

I'd also bring more money to shop. I know that seems trivial, but I have kicked myself more than once for not buying that Tinga Tinga painting and beaded basket. The fact is that you might not get back to Africa again, so if you think you might want to purchase something—just do it. You might find something similar online, but never at the unbelievable prices that you'll find. Plus, the local people depend heavily on tourist dollars.

When is the best time to go to?
There are two rainy seasons: the short rains (mvuli) October through December; and the long rains (masika) from late February to early May. Given the influence of global warming, these rains are not as regular or intense as they once were. It's best to avoid the two rainy seasons because many roads become impassable. High season is January to the end of September, but prices are much higher during this time. Make sure you find out in advance when the lodge or destination of your choice is closed as many are open only during the dry season. The coast is always pretty hot and humid, particularly during the rains, but is much cooler and more pleasant the rest of the year. The hottest time is December just before the long rains. In high-altitude areas, such as Ngorongoro highlands and Mt. Kilimanjaro, temperatures can fall below freezing.

What was essential during your trip?
Malaria is the biggest health threat in Tanzania, so travelers need to be vigilant about taking anti-malarials and applying the bug spray. You also need to drink a lot of water, but be wary of where it comes from; try to always drink bottled water and ensure that the bottle seal is unbroken. It's also imperative to use strong sunscreen: remember you are just below the Equator where the sun is at its hottest. And wear a brimmed hat to shade your face and neck from the sun. Also bring along a small notebook so that you can jot down all the names you hear and questions you might have that you can ask back at camp. And don't forget comfortable walking shoes.

Any advice for people going on their first safari?
I'd advise people to organize their trip through an operator so that things like airport pickups, transfers between lodges, etc are all taken care of... leaving more time for you to relax and enjoy. I've worked with Tanzania Odyssey www.tanzaniaodyssey.com) and Micato (www.micato.com) and both are extremely professional and helpful.

Also make sure you ask about any extras charges so that you're not surprised with extra fees. For example, most game drives are included in the per person, per night rate, but not always. National parks charge a daily rate, so make sure to check to see if the park fees are included. If you'll be staying at different camps, ask if your transfers between camps are included. If you like to have a cocktail or two, ask what alcohol is included in your rate. These could all be extra charges you were not expecting.

Tanzania Safari: the park that time forgot

Ruaha National Park in Tanzania is Africa the way it once was. Brian Jackman wonders why he took so long to discover it.

The shadow of our 12-seater bush plane flits over the hot dry heart of Tanzania as we bounce through the midday thermals. But the landscape changes as we draw closer to Msembe airstrip. On its final approach the plane banks sharply, revealing a range of broken hills.

Poachers wreaked havoc on Ruaha elephants during the 1980s - but now the park has the largest elephant population in East Africa
Below the wingtips zebras stampede across a yellow plain. Farther off I can see a mighty sand river bordered by flat-topped acacias, and solemn giraffes standing like markers measuring the yawning distance.

Advert: tanzania safari

This is my first sight of Ruaha, and already one question is running through my head. Why did I wait so long? There is a rawness here I have never seen before. It's the real thing, the unexpurgated Africa of long ago, and I can't wait to explore it.

Waiting to greet me is Chris Fox, a barefoot figure in faded khaki shirt and shorts. Chris is the owner of Mwagusi, the best lodge in the park. "Straight to camp or the scenic route?" he asks. I choose the second option and head for Kimilamatonge Hill, a landmark I will get to know well in the days to come.

It is late September, deep in the dry season. The blue skies are hazy with the smoke of bush fires. The combretum thickets are in flower, and kudu - the males with handsome corkscrew horns - are nibbling at the flame-red blossoms.

Eventually we reach camp: eight spacious bandas on the banks of the bone-dry Mwagusi River. Each one has a high-peaked roof of makuti thatch, giving them the air of Noah's arks left stranded among the rocks, although Noah never lived in such comfort. There are hot showers, a same-day laundry service and a hammock on the veranda where I can chill with a glass of mango juice and watch elephants digging for water in the riverbed.

At lunch I meet a fellow guest, an American called Ed who says he's been all over Africa but doesn't bother to go anywhere else now because nowhere is better than Ruaha. "I've been here only two days and already I have seen three cheetahs, two leopards and God knows how many lions," he says.

Over much of Africa lions are declining, but not in Ruaha. Chris Fox knows of 185 within 20 miles of the camp, and he's not spinning a yarn. I know this because one night five nomadic males pay us a visit. For the next two hours they roar and roar.

They are hell-bent on a pride take-over and their message to the resident males is clear: bring it on. Next morning I find their tracks outside my door - each paw print as big as my outstretched hand.

Ed is right. There is nowhere better, and with each passing day, following its red ochre game trails among the smouldering purple hills, I can feel the Ruaha getting under my skin. Unlike the Serengeti plains, there is nothing gentle about it.

Its beauty is of an altogether harsher kind. The parched plains are littered with granite boulders, and wherever you look grotesque baobabs as old as London stretch their bare branches against the sky as if begging for rain.

By chance my visit has coincided with the arrival of John "Steve" Stephenson, the Ruaha's first game warden. Now in his 80s and living in Dorset, he has come back to see how the park has fared since he helped to establish it in 1962.

Together with Chris we visit the palm grove beside the Mwagusi where he arrived in his beaten-up old Land Rover to set up the park's first HQ. We poke around in the grass, but apart from an overgrown slab of concrete no trace of the original buildings remains. "It's as if those days had never been," he says. But he is overjoyed when we find a lioness suckling two cubs where he used to stroll.

I asked Steve if the park had changed. "There was lots more water in the Ruaha river," he said. "But once you get into the bush it's as wild as ever." Back at camp a bush dinner has been prepared with tables set out in the sandy riverbed.

As we eat under the stars our meal is interrupted by a line of chanting figures coming out of the darkness, each one carrying a lantern that swings in time to the rhythm of their song. Without any prompting, the camp staff are putting on a show to welcome Steve back to the park he put on the map half a century ago.

Next morning we set off on a game drive before the dawn. Elephants cross the road in front of us, led by a matriarch with ragged ears, and as we pass through a grove of baobabs Chris points out a tree with pegs hammered into its bloated trunk by generations of honey-hunters.

On we go, looking for lions along the sand rivers, and with every mile I find myself slipping deeper under Ruaha's spell. In September the landscape is everywhere painted in the muted colours of the dry season, but at this hour everything glows like amber. It's the same in the evening, in the golden hour before sundown when we spot three cats in the grass: a mother cheetah and her two cubs.

Over so much of Africa our covenant with the wild has been broken beyond repair. But not here. Not yet. These Ruaha cheetahs no longer run at the sight of a vehicle. The youngsters are almost full-grown and lie apart from their mother, calling to her with un-cat-like chirrups. When at last she rejoins them they rub against each other in an orgy of affection, then jump down into the riverbed and pose for our cameras on a fallen tree trunk.

By now I have realised how lucky I am to have Chris Fox as my guide. Like so many men who grow up in the wild, he oozes charisma. Over a bush breakfast on the banks of the Mwagusi he tells me about the female leopard that sometimes sleeps on his bedroom floor, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. Apart from schooldays spent in Devon, he has known the Ruaha all his life and his passion for it shines through in everything he says.

When he was a boy he and his family were often the only visitors. He remembers how, as an eight-year-old, he would go hunting on foot with his father in this secret, unheard-of paradise.

"Those were the days when a character known as Old Man Scotty used to hunt crocodiles in the Great Ruaha River," he recalls. "Scotty used an aluminium boat he'd converted from the fuselage of a crashed light aircraft and hunted at night by torchlight, shooting the crocs between the eyes with the same.22 he turned on himself when hunting was banned."

Even after Ruaha was given national park status in 1964 it continued to be overlooked, and in the mid-1970s its very survival was put at risk by a rice-growing scheme on the Usangu plains - the main catchment area for the Great Ruaha River.

Today the river is so starved of water that it ceases to flow for four months of the year, with disastrous effects for the vast buffalo herds that were the main prey for Ruaha's lions. "What a sight it was," says Chris, "to see 1,000 buffaloes, a wall of horns confronting a determined pride.

Often they would bring down five in a single raid. Then the river dried up. The buffs crashed, from 32,000 to 2,000, and those ancient confrontations are history." Then came the 1980s, the dark decade when the ivory poachers moved in and the elephant population fell from 40,000 to just 9,000.

Every dry season the park went up in smoke as the poachers set their bush fires, and on moonlit nights the woodlands echoed to the sound of gunfire and the whooping of hyenas drawn to the carcasses. At its peak, ivory poaching accounted for 1,500 elephants every year, and rumour has it that the railway built by the Chinese was paid for with the blood of Ruaha's elephants.

"I thought I would never see an end to the killing," Fox confesses. But he did. In 1987 a new warden arrived, vowing he would stop the poaching.

"I listened politely but didn't believe him," says Fox. "After all, Ruaha was the punishment posting, Tanzania's most neglected park. But he was true to his word. As the year progressed he drove out the poachers and in 1988 the ivory trade ban ended the killing."

Now, two decades on, things are looking up. Ruaha's elephant population has risen to 30,000 - the largest in East Africa - and when the adjoining Usangu game reserve is added, Ruaha will become second only to Kafue in Zambia as the biggest national park in the whole continent.

Visitors, too, are increasing. Twenty years ago Ruaha attracted little more than 350 tourists a year. Today that number has risen to 6,000 - but not enough to satisfy the Tanzanians.

A new national tourism policy drafted last year contains radical proposals that could change the face of Ruaha forever. These plans would double the size of the park's four existing camps and encourage new ones, bringing mass tourism to what has hitherto been a pristine wilderness.

You might wonder how such an increase could possibly spoil a park twice the size of Belgium. But while the Ruaha looks big on a map, its prime game-viewing circuits are confined to little more than 60 miles of tracks beside the Mwagusi and Ruaha Rivers.

Beyond this stunningly beautiful core area, much of the park consists of monotonous miombo - the crackling-dry woodland of southern Tanzania - where game is sparse and tsetse flies can make life a misery. Far better, urge conservationists, to establish new low-volume, high-yield camps in the Usangu wetlands for the lucrative top-end tourist market.

If ever a park depended upon responsible tourism it is Ruaha. Until now, remoteness has proved its salvation. To fly there from Dar es Salaam still takes the best part of three hours, so it can never hope to compete with easy-to-reach destinations such as the Serengeti or Masai Mara.

These thoughts cast a shadow across my stay, but are set aside next morning when we go out early to look for leopards.

When you have been away from Africa for a long time the eye hungers for the sight of a leopard. Why this should be so is hard to describe, but big cat junkies will know the feeling. It is not just that exquisitely dappled coat, or the leopard's secretive lifestyle. There is something else. Even the unseen presence of this elegant carnivore injects every game drive with an extra frisson of excitement.

So picture the scene at dawn: the baobabs casting long shadows across the road and a big male leopard stalking guinea fowl in the backlit grass. Chris recognises him at once. "His mother is the one that visits my bedroom," he whispers.

As we appear the hunt is aborted. Exit guinea fowl in a clatter of wings; tail held in a graceful curve, the leopard strolls nonchalantly towards us. As he walks past our vehicle I can barely resist this insane desire to reach out and stroke him. Then, with not so much as a backward glance, he is gone, melting into the boundless thickets of the park that time forgot.

Essentials
Brian Jackman travelled with Audley Travel, other safari specialists that feature Ruaha include Tanzania Odyssey (020 7471 8780, tanzania odyssey) .
A four-night stay at Mwagusi in Ruaha, combined with three nights at Beho Beho in the Selous Game Reserve and three nights beside the Indian Ocean at Ras Kutani Beach Lodge, costs from £4,525 per person on a full-board basis, including economy-class flights with BA and all internal flights and transfers.

reprinted from the Telegraph 8 Feb 2008

Grumeti Reserves - Sasakwa Lodge

Grumeti Reserves - Sasakwa Lodge

Lodges have come a long way since the early days of safaris, says Lisa Grainger as she selects the best high life amid the wildlife.

Looking through the grainy snaps of my grandparents on safari always makes me smile - and not just because of my grandmother's leopard-print culottes and ostrich-skin handbag. It's the absence of comfort: the luggage roped to Land Rovers, the fold-up stools by a fire, the tin mugs, the warm beer, the sausages on sticks.

But then, safari camps in the 1950s were nothing like the African super-camps that have opened in the past year. For a start, they're not really camps. They're boutique hotels in the bush, often featuring spas, interior-designed suites, Michelin-star chefs to cook fresh ingredients flown in by private jet, and butlers to deliver it.

It's not just in South Africa (progenitor of bush glamour) that this sort of safari has evolved. Three months ago in Zambia, two bush houses were opened to accommodate travellers who demand total privacy. In Tanzania, helicopter pads have been built alongside airstrips. In Namibia last year, top American astronomers were flown in to present after-dinner star-talks in the desert. Here are a few of the newest, most exclusive camps on the continent. Prices quoted are per person, per night, on a fully inclusive basis, excluding flights.

Grumeti Reserves, Tanzania

Luxury taken to the utmost. There are just three camps, sleeping a maximum of 56 guests, on this new game reserve and only these visitors have access to the 350,000 acres of grassy plains bordering the Serengeti, the helipad, the 16 polo and thoroughbred horses, the spa, tennis courts, crocquet lawn and the libraries.

Sasakwa Lodge, on the edge of an escarpment, was built in the style of a colonial home - think glossy wooden parquet floors, antiques, grand art, Persian silk carpets and silver, and a private infinity pool with every room. Sabora camp, on the plains, is glam camping taken to extremes. Tents are lined with raw silk, scattered with Persian rugs, and decorated with essentials like wind-up gramophones and silver handmirrors. Beds and baths are adorned with rose petals flown in daily with the seafood.

Reserves of luxury - reproduced from the Telegraph - 21/06/2006 by Lisa Grainger

Olakira movement

As of the 5th of November Olakira will be in a new location at Rongai in Central Serengeti. While at Olakira’s new location, guests are at the right spot to see lion, elephant, buffalo, cheetah and leopard. If you are especially lucky then also the Rhino. We will also be close to Lake Magadi where there are plenty of hippos lounging around. Balloon Safaris are possible while at Olakira. It is quite spectacular to watch the animals below from your high up position in the balloon!

Tanzania - Top Ten lodges

No 4) Olivers Camp, Tarangire

Olivers Camp features 8 beautifully furnished tents set in a truly stunning area of Tarangire National Park. Specialising in walking safaris and fly camping within the park, (the only operators capable of doing this) Olivers camp is all about real safari; guides here are some of the best to be found on the Northern Safari Circuit. Obsurdly good for game in August, September and October this camp is a real little gem!

Southern Tanzania

It was 1am when something caused me to wake up. Perhaps it was the silver light from the brightest moon I've ever seen streaming in through the fly screens. Or maybe the far-off "weeooow" call of a hyena deep in the bush. I decided to get up.

The bed of polished African timber was so big it must have taken me 10 minutes to crawl from the middle to the edge.The smooth floorboards were warm under my feet as I tottered to the rear of my luxurious jungle house.

Squinting through the mosquito mesh towards the lake my view of the water was blocked by a huge boulder. A boulder that I'm sure wasn't there when I went to bed...And then the boulder moved slowly to the left - accompanied by a rhythmic crunching of fresh grass and leaves.

I groped for my torch. Not 30ft from my back door, a two-ton hippopotamus was busy eating the back garden.Well, it's better than having to get the lawnmower out, I thought. And, after all, I was in Tanzania, in the heart of deepest, most mysterious and romantic Africa.

My pet hippo trundled off out of view, pausing only to deposit a gigantic pile of poo under the scrambled egg trees.Scrambled egg trees? That's what the locals call them. And blobs of fluffy scrambled egg is exactly what the tree's clusters of bright-yellow blooms look like.

And you can guess where they grow, can't you? That's right. Near the sausage trees.No, I haven't been smoking some illegal substance. Although sometimes in this almost undiscovered part of Africa, you might think you have.

There were moments on my visit to the game reserves of southern Tanzania that resembled a Disney extravaganza.The plumage of the multicoloured malachite kingfishers, snatching little tilapia fish from the Rafiji river, certainly appeared digitally enhanced.The lilac feathers of the hyacinth rollers looked exquisite as they flitted from bush to bush. The reds and oranges of the bottlebrush plants pure Technicolor.

I was in Selous, the largest game reserve in Tanzania, in South-East Africa. And if you crave romantic adventure, you love the wild and the wilderness, if you want to live like a king and come face-to-face with the world's finest beasts, this is the place.

It's a 10-hour overnight flight from London to the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam. There, I clambered aboard a 10- seater single prop Cessna Caravan.There were no other passengers so the pilot invited me to sit next to him for the 40-minute hop to the Selous Safari Camp.As we taxied down the dirt airstrip in a cloud of red dust, a small herd of giraffe steadily nibbled the fever trees. "They just think we're a big bird," said the pilot. He was only half-joking... Some of the Batteleur eagles you will see in Tanzania have a wing span close to that of a small plane.

The camp was just a short ride from the airstrip in a game-viewing Land Rover. Herds of impala skittered and groups of giraffe cantered to one side as we bounced along to the lodge house.At the safari lodge you can be as busy or as lazy as you like. Ask a guide to take you out on the lake that's teeming with crocodiles and hippos. There's no danger - unless you trail a hand in the water!

If the animals don't actually live in the water they all come there to drink. It's also home to birds, including spoonbill storks and giant fish eagles.Or you could opt for one of the highly civilised Land Rover drives and breakfast in the bush. Your guide will set up a table and director's chair where you can enjoy hot coffee, cereal, ham, eggs and rolls while tuskers and cheeky warthogs rumble by in the distance.Then, in the evening he'll serve gin and tonic sundowners by the shore.

Accommodation is fantastic. Limited to a dozen people at a time, the lodge only sees about 5,000 visitors a year. You stay in a traditional village house, with palm frond eaves that virtually touch the ground. Inside, however, it's like a luxury tent, with floors and furniture made from local hardwoods, and gigantic beds.

There is a limited amount of electricity and the Victorian-style paraffin lamps only add to the romantic atmosphere.Hot water comes courtesy of an outside woodburning stove while dinner is served around a campfire with guests swapping stories around one long table.After four nights, I took a flight two hours north to Jongomero in higher, hillier and more arid terrain.

The camp, a collection of traditional bungalows set around a timber lodge, stands on the banks of a dry river-bed.Game-watching is again by Land Rover but there's also more contact with smaller creatures. Jackals and bat-eared foxes cropped up everywhere as did monkeys, troupes of baboons and Africa's smallest antelopes, little Dikdiks, which are about the size of a spaniel.Early one morning, I had an exceptionally rare sighting of a nocturnal anteater as it scampered back to its burrow after a night's hunting.

Then that evening, as I got ready for dinner, a gennet - one of the smallest of Africa's spotted cats - sauntered past my back balcony.Like Selous, Jongomero is "open" - no fences - so animals can and do stroll by. A herd of four young male elephants put in an appearance so often the staff nicknamed them "The Jongo Boys".

One afternoon, rather than walk an extra mile to the nearest waterhole, they tried to drink the swimming pool!When a small herd of zebra got too close they were seen off with hoots and trunk-waving. Dangerous? Not really.The camp's local guides and guards understand the mood of the animals.

This was demonstrated the following day when my guide Dayo casually announced "We've got a puncture" as we watched 200 buffalo at their favourite drinking spot.While the one-ton beasts - considered to be among the most dangerous and unpredictable in Africa - rumbled past us just 30 yards away, Dayo hopped off the Land Rover, jacked it up and changed the wheel, without batting an eye. Guides like Dayo have grown up in the jungle. They know what you can and can't get away with. I'm astonished how close we get to the lions. But step off the Land Rover and you'd be lunch, for sure.

That was driven home when we came across a boss male, three lionesses and five cubs, faces and whiskers red with the blood of freshly-killed wildebeeste they were feasting on as vultures wheeled overhead.If you fancy a little R&R after your safari adventure the reef island of Zanzibar, once infamous for its slave trade and now better known as one of the world's great "spice islands", is just a few miles offshore.There are plenty of resorts along its eastern coast but I chose the Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel on the remote northern tip.

Guests stay in bungalows with fourposter beds and verandahs, while terraced tropical gardens tumble down to a white sand beach on the edge of a coral reef.Service is top-notch and the restaurant and bars are excellent.

The actual village is a 15-minute stroll along the beach. People are poor but friendly and welcome you to the local bars and restaurants. There's world-class diving and snorkelling and you should check out the Turtle Sanctuary. I went fishing and brought back a 15lb yellowfin tuna which the hotel chef cut into steaks for that night's barbecue.

Zanzibar has a colonial feel. The capital, Stonetown, seems locked in a centuries old timewarp. I'd also recommend a trip to one of the hidden spice farms, where you'll see the island's biggest export - ginger, cinnamon, cardomon, black peppercorns and pungent cloves - being grown.

Ok, this holiday wasn't cheap but definitely comes under the heading of trip of a lifetime. And the bush camps tend to be full-board basis so all you'll need is a little extra cash for your bar bill and modest tips.

Most of the Brits who visit Tanzania head for the world-famous Serengetti park, where you'll rarely be alone. In contrast, at Selous and Jongomero you will rarely see anyone else at all.

Jeff Edwards travelled with Tanzania Odyssey - www.tanzaniaodyssey.com. The company tailor-makes Africa safaris and trips, including three nights at Selous Safari Camp, three nights at Jongomero and, in Zanzibar, four nights at Ras Nungwi Luxury Beach Hotel, and two nights at Beyt al Chai boutique hotel from around £4,000 per person, including all flights. Call 020 7471 8780

Reproduced from the Mirror 27 oct 2007

Tanzania - Top Ten lodges

No 2) Kleins Camp, Serengeti

Situated high on the Kuka Hills in a private concession just beyond the boundaries of the Serengeti Kleins commands superb views over the plains extending up to Kenya. A further joy of Kleins Camps location is that Kleins is not bound by the rules of the Serengeti so the maximum of 16 guests at the camp can enjoy night drives and safaris in open-sided vehicles, and walk in the surrounding bush.

Tanzania - Top Ten lodges

Over the next ten days we will be reviewing Zambia's best safari lodges...there is no particular order to the list as so many of the countries camps are superb and we cannot decide which ones are the very best!!

So, (in no particular order!)

1) Ngorongoro Crater Lodge

Voted year on year as one of the top ten hotels on the planet, Ngorongoro Crater Lodge is quite rightly the flagship property for the Conservation Corporation and one of the worlds most unique hotels. The rooms and communal areas offer views directly down into an extinct volcano packed with the highest density of game in Africa. The butler service and sumptuous opulence will make sure that you remember the crater for a long time afterwards.

News: Lake Natron's Flamingoes

The Tanzanian government has been asked to reconsider a proposed soda ash mining project in Lake Natron.
Experts say the project is a threat to the flamingos in Lake Nakuru and other Rift Valley lakes. BirdLife Africa Partnership members and associates from 23 countries meeting in Nairobi warned that the proposal by Tata Chemicals and the Tanzanian government to construct a soda ash extraction plant at the lake in Tanzania would disrupt the breeding of flamingos.
Lake Natron is the World's most important breeding site for the Lesser Flamingo, a bird listed in the World Conservation Union red list of threatened species.
It accounts for 75 per cent of the world's lesser flamingos and is the only site in the region where the flamingos have bred for the last 45 years.
Experts say during breeding, flamingos are sensitive to disturbance.
"Regional extinction of the Lesser Flamingo will in turn have far reaching impacts on national economies and the tourism industry in the region," warned the conservationists. They petitioned the Tanzanian government to reconsider the proposed development, given the potential negative impacts of its implementation.
"We call upon all governments, both in Africa and globally, all organisations concerned, and all people of goodwill who care about biodiversity and the environment and future generations to stand up against the proposed development."
Concerned that the Environmental Impact Assessment process was not participatory enough, the conservationists called upon Tanzania and Tata Chemicals to ensure due process was followed.

Ras Nungwi news

NEW BROCHURE
Our new sixteen page brochure is hot off the press. Please let us know if you need a stock of these. For a sneak preview please see:
www.rasnungwi.com/RNnewbrochure.pdf

REFURBISHMENT
The hotel has been extensively refurbished including a complete soft refurb of all guest rooms and public areas, general lighting as well as a complete modern redesign of all chalet bathrooms.

NEW PHOTOS
High-resolution photos of Ras Nungwi are available for download here:
www.rasnungwi.com/photogallery

PEPONI SPA
We are pleased to announce the opening of our new custom-built professional spa, which is receiving great feedback and complements the relaxing atmosphere that Ras Nungwi is famous for.
www.rasnungwi.com/peponi_spa

TENNIS COURT
A newly built flood-lit tennis is available from 1 November for guest use on a complimentary basis.

GREAT FOOD AND WINE
Our food has been receiving rave reviews and all menus have been refined and revised. As ever, our wine list is Zanzibar's most comprehensive.

BEHIND THE SCENES
We have not only refurbished the guest and public areas, we have also invested in our infrastructure too. To this end we have imported and fitted a brand new 250 KVA generator from Germany, installed a new laundry and revamped our entire kitchen infrastructure with the inclusion of a specialist cold-room.

Lake Manze Camp

New camp in the Selous!!

Situated on the banks of Lake Manze, Lake Manze Camp is a tented authentic safari camp that rests under a beautiful shady canopy of vast Doum Palms and Terminalia trees. The twelve tents are spacious and well spread out with good views out over the lake infront. Each tent has an en suite bathroom with flush toilet and hot shower and is furnished with twin or double beds with a comfortable veranda to watch the animals passing by.


Designed with the intention of being a rustic camp that focuses on safari as opposed to luxury, Manze’s communal area is simply a large thatched roof over a sand floor scattered with armchairs and sofas that make up the lounge, the dining area and the bar. Simplicity is the key – there is not even any electricity in camp, just kerosene lamps that are placed on the sand and raised up into the thatch roof.


Situated on an elephant walkway means that game is always in camp and the Lake Manze area is regarded as one of the richest for game in the entire Selous, both in the dry and wet season. Manze offers all the activities that the Selous can offer…walking safari, boating, game drives and fly camping.


Overall: A simply stunning, excellent value real safari camp. Manze is all about the simplicity of safari and the beauty of being in a minimalistic tented safari camp in prime location. For those of us wanting a luxury safari camp or a relaxed retreat for a honeymoon then Manze is not for them….there is no pool and it is certainly not the place to stay in the luxury of your room! However if safari is what you are after (and maybe budget is somewhat tighter) then this camp offers the best value in the whole country. The charm and character is undeniabl; not many places in Africa get you this close to game (elephants such as a great big bull names Boris are literally always passing through camp)…….overall, a true little gem!

On safari in Tanzania

If I had to survive in the bush, I’d kill a buffalo,” announces my son, Michael, aged 19.
“How?”
“I’d get a huge stone and crash it on his head.”
The young Masai warrior who is with us begins to laugh, long and deep. This is clearly the funniest thing he’s heard in a while. It’s like a Masai telling us he would survive in London by asking a passer-by for £100. “The buffalo weighs two tons,” our guide chortles. He turns the idea over in his head. “Hit a buffalo on the head with a stone...” he repeats delightedly.
Some trips are holidays and some are much more than that – voyages into another way of thinking and feeling. A journey into the Tanzanian bush is a journey into another dimension. From the threadbare airport at Arusha, our small plane wafted Michael and me to Manyara airstrip; from there, we were driven to the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. The first glimpse takes your breath away. Ngorongoro is an 11-mile-wide volcanic caldera with a lake shimmering in the middle. Its 1,600ft walls turn the crater into an amphitheatre, a savage playpen for the animals that gather there to feed, drink – and be eaten.
The lodge is a hobbitlike community of thatched cottages, right on the rim. Step inside, though, and operatic silk curtains sweep down beside french windows overlooking the crater. There are immense beds, opulent in purple; the tissue box is made of porcupine quills; crystal beads hang from a chandelier. And when we returned from our first game drive, my “butler” had run an aromatic bath drenched in rose petals. I sank blissfully into the bubbles.
Down in the crater, the animals are so used to vehicles it was as though we were entirely invisible. Magical, bizarre, deeply luxurious, this is an astounding place. There are hippos, black rhinos, elephants and many thousand zebras, wildebeests and gazelles. We watched two young lions chase each other across the open plain, giving their deep, vibrant, almost comforting roar.
In the evening, after a dinner to make the gods jealous, we sat in leather chairs by an open fire, drank sherry and played poker – easy to feel like a god here. In the early morning I watched a cloud drift over the crater, while all around our cottage the buffaloes grazed.
THE NEXT leg of our safari was a searing contrast. We took a tiny plane out into the Serengeti, 120 miles from the nearest town, to a tented settlement without running water. This is Tanzania Under Canvas, and it moves every few months to chase the great migration of wildebeests and zebras.
My tent was right on the margins of the camp, and it made me uneasy, especially when I was told nobody had a gun. My whistle and torch didn’t feel like much protection from the lions. Not that staying there is a hardship. Like Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, it is run by CC Africa, and the mischievous camp manager, Bruce, welcomed us into the canvas “living room” erected just a week or two before our arrival, with its crystal glasses, leather-bound books and khaki sofas.
But there really are lions in the camp at night. I would have felt safer sharing a tent with Michael, and Bruce conceded that was perfectly reasonable – because then I would be only half as likely to be attacked. “It isn’t that he’d save you – it’s that while the predators munch on one, the other can escape. It’s the principle behind large herds.”
Later, I read from Out of Africa as I tried to sleep. “The views were immensely wide,” Karen Blixen writes. “Everything you saw made for greatness and freedom. Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart.” On any trip, the best literature of the place intensifies and enlarges your experience. But for all Blixen’s delicacy of language, I still couldn’t sleep.
EARLY NEXT morning we stepped out into the gentle danger of Africa. A red dawn stained the skies, and I felt the space of a whole continent – at once exhilarated and relaxed by the rising murmur of insects, the famous light. That first day we saw a cheetah, a leopard and a pride of lions with their cubs. Most impressive, though, was the thunder of the wildebeests as they stampeded over a hill, carried by dust clouds like an apocalyptic vision. Watching them, I found myself thinking like a lion: here was a banquet it would be impossible ever to finish. Later we witnessed the fear and despair of baby wildebeests parted from their mothers, as vultures went jauntily about their business nearby.
“Where there’s death there’s life,” said Ivan the ranger, matter-of-factly – yet he helped us to save one youngster by encouraging it to follow our vehicle.
But fear is part of the deal here, as I came to understand. Here you are not gods, as you are at the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, and the experience offers a different kind of intensity. Spending all day watching the predators, and most of the night listening to them hunt outside your canvas wall, you soon begin to identify with the primal stimuli of the bush. You forget your wearisome human pride, and lose that sense of difference between man and other animals. I’d expected the worst thing about Tanzania Under Canvas to be the strip of tent separating me and the bush. It turned out to be the best.
From The Sunday TimesJuly 1, 2007; By Sally Emerson

Veiled secrets

SLAVERY and sultans shadow the East African islands of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania, north of Dar es Salaam.

Slavery is the key historical issue, but with domes and minarets piercing the skyline, it is the stone legacy of the sultans that entices visitors. Stone Town, the old part of Zanzibar City, on the western coast of the main island, is the place to discover it all.

Merchant ships from Persia, Arabia and India have traded with Zanzibar for 2000 years, leaving a potent blend of Eastern and African culture. The islands were long owned by the sultans of Oman, who took over from the Portuguese in 1698. By 1840, Zanzibar was so important for Omani trade with East Africa that its capital, Stone Town, became the sultans' headquarters.

Like many places in Africa, Zanzibar has reinvented itself as a tourist destination. Since 1964, when the last sultan was overthrown, Zanzibar has been a separate state within mainland Tanzania. It is made up of two large islands: Unguja (Zanzibar Island) and Pemba, plus several islets. Its capital and only large settlement is Zanzibar City, which embraces New City and Stone Town. I spend time in the pungent, narrow streets of Stone Town, the economic and cultural hub of old Zanzibar and now a World Heritage site.

Outside Stone Town are clove and coconut plantations, long, perfect beaches and coral reefs, rare, long-tailed red colobus monkeys and, on the small island of Nungwi, giant sea turtles, all in a humid tropical climate. But in Stone Town I walk beside carved Arab doorways and slave cells, feel the cobbled streets beneath my feet, look up at cool verandas and experience the potent sense of 2000 years of connections between Africa and the East.

Best monument to the slave trade: After the abolition of the Zanzibar trade in 1873, the Anglicans built a cathedral on Stone Town's Creek Road, where the old slave market used to be. The place where the altar now stands was once the whipping post where slaves were tested for toughness: if they wept, their price went down. The marble around the altar is blood red. Beneath the market are their cramped cells.

Best door: The ornate, studded doors of Stone Town have a clear Persian influence but a distinct style. The maze of alleyways is dotted with these immense, elaborately carved doors. It was a custom in Zanzibar for a builder first to order his doorframe and then build the house around it. In 1857, adventurer Richard Burton commented: "The higher the tenement, the bigger the gateway, the heavier the padlock and the huger the iron studs that nail the door of heavy timber, the greater the owner's dignity." The most interesting door, behind the House of Peace Memorial Museum, dates back more than 300 years, which makes it reputedly the oldest in Zanzibar.

Best social quirk: Zanzibar is predominantly Muslim because of the influence of the Omani sultans. The women are supposed to cover themselves modestly but the gaiety of Zanzibaris is evident in the fun the women have with their cotton wraps, worn over their heads and as skirts. The girls wear a brightly patterned scarf, called a kanga. A Zanzibari girl might wear a kanga with a message on it directed at someone in her social group; one I spot says, "Don't compete with me, you can never beat me." Another girl, realising the message is directed at her, might go home and change into a kanga that says, "A confident person requires no reason to practise envy."

Best-named attraction: Built in 1883, the House of Wonders was originally a royal palace. There is a 3.3m door gilded with texts from the Koran, and 12 other magnificently carved doors, reminders of the vast and showy wealth of the sultans. In one room I see traditional, ornate ebony furniture and, on the other side, European couches in flowery, 1960s kitsch, the influence of the other wives, perhaps.

The climax of Sultan Barghash's flamboyant building spree, it has tiers of balconies, a clock tower, and a grand position on the waterfront behind the Forodhani Gardens between the Palace Museum and the Omani Fort. It houses the dreary-sounding but quirky Zanzibar National Museum of History and Culture.

Best resort: The white sand, azure sea and small pine forest on Mnemba Island, just off the northeast coast of Zanzibar, lead me to suspect Ursula Andress will pop out of the ocean at any minute. The entire island is a resort, and with only 10 evenly spaced villas, it feels as if I own a secret paradise. Apart from the waiter who brings me a drink to accompany the breathtaking sunset, the only disturbance is from the little Suni antelopes that occasionally scamper around my villa. www.mnemba.com.

Best guided tour: If you have ever wondered how nutmeg, ginger, tamarind, guava, carambola, menthol or cloves are grown, a spice tour is for you; such guided tours provide local knowledge you might otherwise miss. Highlights are the lipstick tree, with pods that produce a vibrant red dye, and soapberry trees, with berries that lather like soap when you rub them. Tours from 9am to 2pm include a lunch featuring spices encountered on the tour. Eco & Culture Tours, with an office on Hurumzi Street, offers a genuine medicine man as a guide. More: www.ecoculture-zanzibar.org.

Best drink: Taken in the shade while escaping the tropical midday sun, dawa is mostly vodka and ice but tastes of lime and honey. Dawa means medicine or magic potion in Swahili, for reasons which can rapidly become clear. The top floor of ETC Plaza, at the corner of appropriately named Suicide Alley and Shangani Street, is a good place to try dawa and the bar comes with ocean views; like Zanzibar, this drink is never bland.

Best hangover cure: Everywhere I go, people stand barefoot beside the orange dirt roads, selling sugarcane. I use a knife to slice the raw cane and lick the inside. Taken with a glass of water, it refreshes for the rest of the day. I also recommend corn sold on the streets: it tastes dry and like toffee.

Best mode of transport: A dalla-dalla, or a Zanzibari bus, is a beaten-up Toyota pick-up truck with a wooden roof and wrought-iron sides; these should carry 20 passengers but often 40 pile in, the extras hanging precariously off the sides. A dalla is five Tanzanian shillings, which is what the journey originally cost. They are still very cheap, about 300 shillings (26c) a mile. The No.2 dalla-dalla travels 20km north of Zanzibar town to the Mangapwani slave cave where, after the trade was abolished, slaves who were about to be sold were kept hidden in hollowed-out coral cellars.

Best street food: East Africa's best street market is held every night by the waterfront at Forodhani Gardens in Stone Town. In the twilight, grilled fish and meat on skewers and octopus look and smell enticing. The crowds can be a little pushy, but it is a great place to wander even if you don't buy. I have already eaten, but it is still hard to resist the food, fresh and sizzling in the dark.

Best shopping: Fine Zanzibari wooden chests are not quite as good as a door but are still hammered and studded, and have secret compartments. Some of the finest examples are in the Abeid Curio Shop opposite the cathedral. But how to get one back home? Spears and knives pose a similar problem. For those with less ambitious tastes, watercolours of the Stone Town doors are intense and enchanting. I buy one for about $15 in an art studio in the Omani Fort. The abstract carvings of the Makonde tribe are also eerie and powerful, with columns of interwoven human figures.

Bustling Mchangani Street in Stone Town consists of stalls crammed with kangas of every colour and grade of magnificence. Cathedral Street has some of the opulent furniture hastily left by rich Arabs after the 1964 revolution. I also visit Zanzibar Curio Shop in Changa Bazaar for a taste of pre-1964 wealth. And I return to the night market in the Forodhani Gardens for cheap Masai jewellery and carvings.

Best story: Princess Salme, daughter of the sultan of Oman, was born here in 1844 and shocked her family by converting to Christianity after falling pregnant and eloping with a young German merchant. When she died in 1924 she still had the dress she eloped in and a bag of sand from a Zanzibar beach. Her book Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (by Emily Ruete, born Sayyida Salme) makes good pre-visit reading.

Best sundowners: Africa House Hotel on the coast in Stone Town was the English club from 1888 onwards and still has a colonial expat feel to it. It is a perfect place to end a walk around Stone Town: you can watch the sun sink into the Indian Ocean, with a dawa in hand.

Best end to the evening: Tower Top Restaurant at Emerson & Green Hotel, 236 Hurumzi St, Stone Town, a five-minute walk from Africa House, is world class. Atop a hotel, in a tower straight out of Arabian Nights, the restaurant seats about 20, most lounging on Arabian-style cushions and eating off low tables. The fixed-price menu includes dishes such as battered pepper shark and curried fishcakes with chutney and yoghurt. Enjoying a five-course meal, I look over Stone Town with all its faiths and facets, at an Anglican church, a minaret and a Muslim temple. There is a warm breeze from the Indian Ocean. Children scramble to collect kangas put out to dry on hot tin roofs. A violinist in a white robe plays eerily beautiful music, as if trying to raise a magic carpet, while his robe moves in the breeze. www.emerson-green.com.

Best last word: Locals greet tourists with jambo and enthusiastic tourists say jambo back, thinking they are saying hello in Swahili. But locals instead say mambo vipi, Swahili slang for "stay cool". Use it to say hello and goodbye and impress the locals.

Reproduced from The Australian - Michael Stothard - August 09, 2007

African monkey trail - by Kate Humble

The pilot turned and shouted above the noise of the engine. “If those animals start to cross the runway, we’ll need to abort the landing.” My husband Ludo and I could only agree – “the animals” were bigger than our tiny plane. This was our introduction to Ruaha, a little-known national park in southern Tanzania. Those who know it rave, not just about the beauty of its landscapes but about the variety and sheer number of animals that live in and wander through this pristine, unfenced wilderness.

We landed on the mud air-strip, coasting past the herd of feeding elephants. Ruaha, normally bone dry, had received its annual rainfall in just a month, and was lush and verdant. The drive to camp turned into a game drive. Male kudu with corkscrew horns and masked faces peered out at us. A herd of buffalo snorted and stamped. A lone lioness, the remains of a young giraffe beside her, rolled and stretched blissfully in the grass.

Mdonya Old River Camp is just that. Camouflage green tents are set along the banks of what was once the Mdonya River, and a larger tent serves as a dining room. The whole lot could be dismantled in 24 hours, leaving few signs it ever existed. The manager, Nick, showed us to our tent and warned: “Don’t leave anything outside after dark; we’re having a bit of a problem with a hyena. She’ll eat anything. Last night she had a go at one of the kerosene lanterns.” And that really is the beauty of this camp. It doesn’t shut out the wildlife – quite the opposite. A month before, a pride of lions killed a buffalo outside one of the tents. “We didn’t have any guests in that tent at the time,” Nick said. “We just put people in the tents farthest away and left the lions to it. They stayed around for a few days. The guests loved it.”

The rain had brought new life to the bush – newborn impala, baby giraffe and tiny vervet monkeys clinging to their mothers. But it also meant that, with food and water everywhere, the game had dispersed. We were at the mercy of chance and every sighting was a treat. Travelling was challenging: vehicles became stuck in treacly mud, and airstrips became unusable. We flew out of Ruaha, dodging rainclouds, heading west. From the window we saw hills become mountains, the bush become forest and then the grey expanse of Lake Tanganyika, the size of England, separating Tanzania from the Congo.

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Western Tanzania is largely inaccessible. Gombe is its best-known reserve. Jane Goodall lived there from the early 1960s, studying and making astonishing discoveries about our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Gombe doesn’t really have facilities for visitors, but 200km (125 miles) south is the larger Mahale National Park, home to several groups of chimps. Kyoto University has had researchers there for more than 40 years. Visitors to Mahale’s few tourist camps have a good, although not guaranteed, chance of seeing chimpanzees in their natural habitat, going about their daily business unconcerned by a human audience. I had only seen chimpanzees in captivity. They are big, powerful, extremely intelligent, human enough to make you think you might understand them, animal enough to make them inscrutable. I was drawn to them as much by fear as by curiosity. But before Ludo and I and John and Diana, two Americans also staying at Greystoke Camp, could venture into their territory, we had to pass a test.

Last summer catastrophe struck the chimps of Mahale.

They started dying in alarming numbers of a flu-like disease. Magdalena, a vet who worked at Gombe for years and now runs Greystoke Camp, was part of the team trying to establish where the disease had originated. There was suspicion that the “flu” had been caught from humans, and strict precautions had been established to prevent any recurrence. Researchers and tourists have to stay at least 10m (33ft) from the chimps, and wear masks. Any hint of a cold and you are not allowed in the forest.

Once the aircraft landed on the shores of the lake, we boarded a boat and sailed south. After about an hour we saw a beach, empty apart from an eccentric-looking thatched building, and a small knot of people – our welcoming party. The rest of the camp was hidden beyond the tree line. Behind the beach, the forest: dark, daunting and for the moment off limits.

We spent the afternoon on the lake with Greystoke’s guide, Safe. Ostensibly there to point out crocodiles, hippos and hundreds of bird species, he was also carefully monitoring us: any sign of a cold and we would not be seeing any chimps. Blissfully unaware of this, we were celebrating the sheer joy of being in such a place with a large gin and tonic, all talking at once, so we barely heard Safe’s shout. “Chimp!” he repeated, pointing towards the bank. Disbelievingly, we turned – and there was a black face peering, a little indignantly at us, from a tree. “It’s a wild one, not one from the habituated group,” Safe said. “You’re very lucky. Hardly anyone sees them.” Silent now, we looked from the chimp to each other and back again, hardly daring to believe what we were seeing. Tears brimmed in Diana’s eyes.

Imagine then how we felt the next morning, when, having been given a clean bill of health, we found ourselves 10m from Alofu, the alpha male, lying on his back, arms flung wide, snoozing with a couple of younger males. Pushing through the undergrowth, we came across another little group, a female catching a nap while her baby was entertained by another young chimp.

On our final morning we abandoned breakfast. The trackers had spotted the chimps obligingly close by. We hadn’t seen them the previous day, despite six exhausting, exhilarating hours tracking through the forest. Now we stood, staring upwards as the canopy shook. Leaping bodies crashing through the branches, hooting calls filled the air and made our hair stand on end. As we climbed reluctantly back on the boat to leave, we were joined by one of the camp’s staff wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “98 per cent chimpanzee”: DNA, we agreed, we could all be proud of.

Kate Humble presents Springwatch on BBC Two. Her website www.stuffyourrucksack.com offers information on what to take on holiday to help local communities.

Need to know

Kate Humble travelled with Tanzania Odyssey (020-7471 8780, www.tanzaniaodyssey.com, which can tailor-make an eight-night safari staying four nights at Mdonya Old River Camp and four nights at Greystoke Camp from £3,710pp (£100pp discount when mentioning this article). The cost includes flights from Heathrow to Dar es Salaam, internal flights and transfers.

Reproduced from the The Times June 16, 2007

Exploring Zanzibar; a Tropical Island Adventure - By Annabel Skinner

Exploring Zanzibar; a Tropical Island Adventure - By Annabel Skinner

Zanzibar wraps its reality around you like a lingering fairytale. This tiny archipelago of Indian Ocean islands that once lured sailors, Sultans and slavers to its far-distant shores is so charismatic that it sweeps you into its shadowy romantic past and sunlit present all at once, and finally sets you down, all sun-bronzed and laden with spices and island art, and memories of an exceptionally sparkling and colourfully abundant sea.

The main island is small and easy to explore, with glorious white sand, palm-fringed beaches rewarding you for just a couple of hours’ drive to the North coast and the same to the East, along mainly hopeless but endlessly fascinating roads flanked by simple homesteads, roads worn more by foot or bicycle and frequented by chickens. There is a time warp here, this place where the past is so responsible for the present, where mobile phones, internet connections and television are all relatively recent, and where the history and culture is so imbued that you can simply stretch out beneath the dappled shade of the coconut palms and soak it up. Welcome to Zanzibar, and a world apart.

Sailors and traders from the first century AD came to the lands of ‘Zinj el Barr’, the Black Coast, bringing beads, porcelain and silks to trade for gold, slaves and spices, ebony, ivory, indigo and tortoiseshell. They waited for annual monsoon winds to fill their dhow sails and bear them across the Indian Ocean; today’s visitors usually arrive in a small ‘plane or ferry from Dar es Salaam. But these still afford a measured approach, allowing a breathtaking vision of sparkling cerulean waters over sandbanks and reefs, and then into Stone Town, the ancient island capital, still more of a town than a city, a maze of winding pedestrian streets in a hotchpotch of rooftops, a mass of corrugated iron overwhelming the historic stonework beneath.

Helplessly entwined in its own history, the people of Zanzibar are the Swahili, evolving from the influx of mainly Arabian and Persian immigrants who settled on the East African coast and islands to trade and escape the political upheavals of the Gulf two thousand years ago. Their cultural history was founded in sailing dhows, similar to those that glide by its shores today, boats that brought people, language and cultures and long centuries of power wrangling.

The Arab immigrants were overthrown by the Portuguese in the 15th century, until the Sultan of Oman finally saw them off for good in 1698 and started building the Stone Town of today; the Old Fort on the harbour was built on the remains of a Portuguese church dating back to 1600. Visitors to Stone Town still encounter the grandiose vision and dominant architectural style of a confident young Sultan who transferred the seat of his sultanate from the contentious capital of Muscat to the breezier climes of Zanzibar in 1832, and then began palace building in earnest, and seeding the coconut palms and clove plantations which soon defined Zanzibar as the ‘Spice Island’.

Driving through the island centre now, it is worth stopping to explore the spice plantations, where a guided walk for passing tourists is likely to be more lucrative than vast crops to export, but it is a fine sensual pleasure to crumble cinnamon bark straight from the tree, to breathe the scent of cloves drying in the sun, to taste and guess the spice from a handful of pods and powders. These are well used by the chefs and kitchens in beach hotels, where fishermen daily bring the catch of the day to be grilled, baked, battered or blanched with assorted Zanzibar spice.

The coast is dotted with hotels, self-contained beach hideaways that relish their privacy and provide various levels of style and comfort. I have been to most and head north by choice, to the northernmost peninsula which is occupied by Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel. The name is a very literal Swahili translation, but it says nothing of how this beach is secluded and the coral sands are blanched very, very pale. It does not tell how the wonderfully translucent and clear the sea is here, where a coral reef surrounds the shore creating a shallow wide expanse to explore until the tide rises high and then turquoise waves crash onto the beach. It is a naturally beautiful place.

Turtles come ashore to lay their eggs when the moon is full, and the surrounding reefs are a thriving colourful world to snorkel and dive. Ras Nungwi Beach Hotel is essentially respectful of its place, each room constructed from local wood and coral rag to create a number of thatched round houses along the beach, with lodge rooms in gardens behind. Soft sand pathways link the central thatched and open-sided restaurant to the rooms, pool and dive centre, providing the comforts of a fine hotel with a rustic, beach hideaway style. This is a fine place to lie back and soak up Zanzibar, crack open a coconut, watch the dhows on the far horizon and look forward to spice-scented, star filled African night.

Shooting Star to open new suites

Shooting Star Lodge builds 2 stunning new Suites: Kusi and Kaskazi

Construction has started on 2 new suites to be completed by October this year.

Kusi and Kaskazi. The names are taken from the trade winds that pass by each 6 months, Kusi from South and Kaskazi from the North.

The suites are located on the hill over looking the existing Sea View Cottages and are reached via a sandy path through the tropical garden; both are set in private gardens.

Each suite is entered through a pair of fabulous carved Zanzibari doors, and will have simple, but high quality finishes, antique furniture, and will be fully air-conditioned.

The Ground floor will have a huge hallway, which will open up onto a large terraced exterior Verandah with a private swimming pool. Shower and WC are reached from the hallway. Extra beds can be added to enable the hall way to be made into an additional bedroom with either double or twin beds.

The Verandah and pool deck will have dining and lounging areas as well as a kitchen space so that our chefs can prepare meals if required. A fridge will be stocked with drinks and fruit for guests on arrival.

The first floor is reached up a curved staircase reminiscent of our existing Family Cottages and houses the Master bedroom suite. The bedroom itself is some 40sq m and has magnificent panoramic views both up and down the coast. Windows will be shuttered as well as glazed so that those guests who prefer the ocean breeze to the AC can have the option. The 2 m wide bed will be of a traditional Zanzibari style and fitted with batik and cream linen. Large Shower and separate WC are adjoining.

Continuing up the stairs to the roof level, our guests will find the perfect place to relax in the evening, the views from the flat roof will allow them to watch the sun set over the island and rise over the Ocean. Our fantastically starry skies have inspired us to furnish the roof with a fully netted bed so that a night or a nap under the stars can be more than a dream. We are also building a huge bath on the roof for those who enjoy the alfresco touch.


Due to such high occupancy over the last 12 months they have also decided to build 2 day rooms which will be available for guests who require a late check out, each room will have 2 single netted beds for resting and a shower room. They will be furnished simply in the style of our existing rooms. Providing the guests stay for lunch they will not be charged, otherwise a nominal sum will be added to their bill for cleaning and linen etc.

The rooms are located close to reception and will be completed by June this year.

Nomad in Tarangire

Nomad have moved their mobile camp outfit into Tarangire, setting up in the most remote area of the National Park

In brief the camp is....
-Small & stylish, 'Bedouin meets the Bush'
-4 tents, comfort, space & elegance
-Bucket showers, hot & cold water on demand, hammocks, tin baths
-Moves between a number of selected campsites in the remoter southern area of the Park therefore maximising game viewing
-Open Jun to Mar
-Activities: Game drives & walking safaris-Children over 8 welcome
-Rate: From US$530 rack pppn-Includes: Full board accommodation, drinks, laundry, airstrip transfers, activities with private guide, exclusive vehicle

New Nomads Camp in the Serengeti

On the border with the Serengeti National Park, the new Nomad camp replaces Nomad's original Loliondo Camp.

-Designed as a celebration of Nomadic cultures worldwide

-6 en suite 'yurts' with bucket showers & short drop loos

-Light & airy with open 'wheel' in the centre of the roof & wrap around shade net windows

-Moves seasonally spending 6 months in southern Loliondo (Piyaya) & 6 months in northern Loliondo (Ololoswan)

-Open year round

-Activities: Day & night game drives, walking safaris, Maasai cultural interaction, picnics

-Children over 8 welcome

-Rate: From US$530 rack pppn8Includes: Full board accommodation, drinks, laundry, airstrip transfers, activities with private guide, exclusive vehicle

Private Safari in Katavi, a Connoisseurs Choice

In Katavi, this camping safari allows the true adventurer to escape the core areas and explore the remoter regions of the park: camp by the flood plains of Paradise and Mpunga which play host to a large variety of game throughout the dry season; or for spectacular views, hike up to the Mlele escarpment and the Chorangwa Falls.

A mobile safari really is a safari in the traditional sense: as you move, so too does your camp, and each evening you will be welcomed home by the same familiar faces, no matter how much the setting has changed. The camp is serviced by a dedicated crew of seasoned professional who can pack up the camp, whisk it to a new location and set it up again in time for your arrival in the evening. While it can move each day, we would strongly recommend two nights in any one site.

The camp is only available on an exclusive basis with your own private guide and 4WD car, so you have complete freedom to plan totally flexible safari itineraries each day.Designed primarily a base for exploring remoter areas, with an emphasis on walking (where allowed) as well as game drives, the camp is light, simple, yet perfectly comfortable. There are 4 well equipped, walk-in tents with two cot beds and a bathroom set at the rear with a short drop toilet and bucket showers.

There is a dining tent with a varied bar or you can dine al fresco under a canopy of glittering stars. The food is excellent, the fire place relaxing and the G and T’s flow.

This is how safaris used to be, and yet so few are nowadays. A rare chance for roving adventure and true mobility. This, is what safari is all about.

Increase in Ngorongoro Crater Fees

Ngorongoro Crater Increases Crater Fee

The Ngorongoro Crater Authority has announced an increase for the Crater fee for Ngorongoro Crater.

With effect on 01 July 2007 the crater fee will increase from USD25 per person to USD50 per person

Getting a Tanzanian Visa in the US

This remark is for the information of U.S. citizens who plan on getting their visa from the Tanzania Embassy in Washington DC. The following quote is taken from the Visa instructions at www.tanzaniaembassy-us.org:

(posted by one of out clients)

"2. APPLICATION FORMS SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY ONE (1) RECENTLY TAKEN
PASSPORT SIZE PHOTOGRAPH AND A SUFFICIENTLY STAMPED SELF-ADDRESSED
ENVELOPE TO FACILITATE RETURN OF PASSPORT BY THE MOST SECURE MAIL."

Unfortunately, this instruction assumes that the embasssy employee processing your passport understands the U.S. postal system and is willing to use it as you direct, an assumption which is sadly unwarrented.

After receiving guidance from the USPS that Registered Mail was "the most secure" method for mailing a passport, I sent the Tanzania Embassy my passport with the self addressed envelope as requested, complete with enough postage to have the passport returned by Registered Mail ($8.53).

I also included a written request with the passport that it be returned by Registered Mail.
When the passport arrived back in my hands, it had been sent by regular mail, not registered, not certified, not insured, and not even with a confirmation number so that it could have been tracked down had it gone missing.

so I got to thinking: If this is the efficiency demonstrated by people who are hand selected for embassy duty, one wonders what one will find in the country of Tanzania itself.
russmayers@juno.com

Selous Accomodation Review by Annabel Skinner, author of the Cadogan Guide to Tanzania

The Selous Safari Camp

Owned by the Selous Safari Company, Selous Safari Camp is the Selous Game Reserves best tented camp. Having been recently refurbished, and now offering a 9 tented standard camp or, a slightly more luxury, 4 tented ‘Private’ camp (an extra $50 pppn), Selous Safari Camp is without doubt the finest tented accommodation in the park.

An authentic and elegant permanent tented camp tucked among the palm trees on the banks of the Rufiji River, the camp is spacious and stylishly designed, with a shady swimming pool in both the private and the main camp. A richly furnished dining room and bar area raised high on stilts substantial enough to withstand the onslaught of elephant perusals during candlelit suppers, are the primary focus of the main camp and offers stunning views over the lagoon beside of camp.

All rooms in both camps have their own private verandas, outdoor showers and are colourfully bright and airy. The atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable; the camp staff give guests a real sense of being looked after, and provide an inspired gourmet menu that belies the rural bush location, even on intrepid fly-camping expeditions.

Standards of guiding and wildlife expertise are some of the best in the park, and taking the opportunity to fly-camp under the stars with the experts is extremely worthwhile for the extra cost. Walking safaris are also recommended; they are well led and give a wonderful opportunity to observe the minutiae of bush life; bird calls and animal tracks. Prices when compared to those of competitors offer exceptional value for money.

With its combination of great location, good food, relaxed atmosphere and excellent guiding, it is well worth a visit at any time of year.

The Selous Game Reserve

This month we are reviewing the Selous Game Reserve in Southern Tanzania. You will find below an introduction to the park and the man from whom it took its name. The text is written by one of our consultants Annabel Skinner, author of the Cadogan Guide to Tanzania.

Stay tuned to the Tanzania Odyssey Blog for the next month as Annie reviews the different lodges throughout the park.

Frederick Courtney Selous and the Selous Game Reserve

The game reserve was named in 1922 after an English explorer, Captain Frederick Courtney Selous, who met his fate beneath Sugar Mountain in Beho Beho, in combat with the Germans during the First World War. His name is generally pronounced with a French affectation that does not enun- ciate the final ‘s’ – ‘seloo’ – and this is the how the park’s name is pronounced today. Selous was the son of a chairman of the London Stock Exchange, who finished his public school education with a passion for Africa inspired by the writings of Livingstone. In 1871, rebelling against his family’s desires for him to enter the medical profession, he travelled to South Africa and embarked on a now legendary expatriate lifestyle. A friendship with King Lonbengula in Bulaweyo allowed him to travel freely through Matabeleland, one of the last areas of wild big-game herds that had survived extermination by the first Europeans. Selous earned himself a reputation as the ‘greatest of the white hunters’, distinguishing himself from other trigger-happy expats by his keen interest in nature, and propounding early theories on conservation and natural history – which did not entirely curtail his career as an animal-killer. Selous’s skills as a tracker and hunter, as recorded in his bestselling accounts A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa sold to an enthralled audience in Victorian England. Widely celebrated, he began leading safaris through the bush; he organized an extravagant hunting safari for Roosevelt and entourage in 1909.

Retired in Surrey by the outbreak of the First World War, Captain F.C. Selous felt that he could contribute to the war effort in East Africa. He joined the 25th Royal Fusiliers in Nairobi and pursued retreating German Schutztruppe through southern Tanzania, an arduous pursuit in which he refused to ride on horseback, insisting on marching alongside his depleted column of men. Each night when his men retired to their tents, Selous disappeared into the bush with his butterfly net to collect speci- mens. The captain was 64 when he died in action, killed by a German sniper at Beho Beho on the Rufiji River. Trenches remain in the Selous, a legacy of the German campaign, led by commander Paul von Lettow Vorbeck, who resisted more numerous allied troops here for four years.

More recently, another expat Englishman, Constantine Ionides, has developed a reputation as a hunter with a bent for conservation, playing a key role in controlling elephant poaching with the support of Tanzanian Game Officer Mzee Madogo in the 1990s. Now the reserve is divided between photographic tourism and hunting, the latter being the major source of income required to police the area against poaching and thus support the entire conservation area. Around 210 foreign hunters pay a vast sum of money to shoot up to 2,000 designated animals, the reserve’s quota, between July and November. The aim is to restrict human impact. Plans are under way to expand the area for photo- graphic tourism on the south side of the Rufiji River.

The Selous Game Reserve

The Rufiji River with its lagoons, sand banks and lakes, and the surrounding forests and woodlands that make up the northern, accessible part of the Selous Game Reserve creates a very unusual safari environment. The spectrum of wildlife is equally diverse, and is distinct in that this southern location attracts a unique combination of eastern and southern African wildlife, both resident and migratory – notably a curious and colourful assortment of more than 440 known species of birds and a healthy population of African hunting dog. Covering almost 50,000 square kilometres, an area greater than the size of Switzerland, the Selous Game Reserve is one of the largest areas set aside for wildlife preservation anywhere in the world, although only a small northern portion is allocated for photographic tourism – access to the southern region is strictly prohibited. This is also an area that naturally appeals to a photographic lens, as the waterways and plains reflect all the changing colours of the sun and attract numerous well-feathered water birds and raptors, alongside a healthy population of predators. The Selous was declared a World Heritage Site by the UN in 1982, but the number of visitors is still fewer than 5,000 a year and this lack of mass tourism ensures that those who do visit the Selous enjoy a true wilderness experience. The vast area contained within the boundaries of the Selous Game Reserve accounts for five per cent of the landmass of Tanzania, yet there are just a few options for tourist accommodation, all high-quality, low-impact lodges that maintain high standards. The freedom to take walking and boating safaris within the reserve means that guiding standards are also especially good and can extend to include excellent options to fly-camp overnight in the bush. All of these allow visitors to enjoy varied perspectives on life in this green and lush southern corner. The tourist sector north of the Rufiji River extends to Stiegler’s Gorge in the west and the TAZARA railway in the north, and contains all the various forms of vegetation to be found in this ecosystem. The combination of the river – its meandering streams, ox-bow lakes and swamplands – with open wood- lands, plains and dense thicket forests, makes the Selous an interesting ecological environment and an ideal location to explore over a number of days by vehicle, on boat trips and on foot.

The scenery of Selous Game Reserve is varied, with unusually green grasses and tangles of vege- tation, and provides a film-depleting string of photo opportunities with each turn in the path. The river routes are characterized by legions of tall borassus palms along the banks that grow up to 25m tall, and leave a tall headless totem when the water courses change direction and they become too thirsty to survive. The same demise is thought to explain the spooky silhouettes of ancient leadwood trees (Combetum imberbe) that remain intact, preserved when they die after up to two millennia of life, leaving a skeletal perch for songbirds and raptors that retains a perfectly still photogenic pose. The Selous conserves a surprisingly colourful African landscape, and the white forms of the leadwoods are in stark contrast to the surrounding vibrancy of well-watered greens and a ranging palette of sandy terracottas that reflect with the moods of the sun on the waters. The eastern area of the reserve around Selous Safari Camp, Rufiji River Camp and Impala Mbuyu Camp is a grassy woodland, with a mass of terminalia trees and sweet-scented African mahogany trees providing fragrant shady areas through which to enjoy walking safaris. Further north, and westwards towards the rise of the Beho Beho Mountains and the camp of the same name, the land is mainly covered by low miombo woodland. It takes a full daytrip to travel between these two areas from the respective camps.This area can be reached as a full day trip from southeasterly camps such as Selous Safari Camp. The western reaches of the reserve are the least developed, with Sand Rivers Selous presently the only camp in the area; its elevation gives magnificent views across the woodlands and plains of the southerly hills. Here the Rufiji River forms a narrow 8km creek through a chasm in the hard rock. This scenic region is now called Stiegler’s Gorge, after an unfortunate Swiss fellow who came to a sorry end when he met an elephant here at the turn of the last century.

Ngorongoro Crater Lodge

We have had so many enquiries this year for the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge that we have created a dedicated microsite to this great lodge - arguably one of the best lodges in Africa - certainly with views that are unrivalled. Please see http://www.ngorongoro-crater-lodge.com

Zanzibar Film Festival

The picturesque Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar is set to play host to the 10th edition of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) from 29 June to 8 July. As East Africa’s largest cultural event, ZIFF celebrates the unique cultural heritage of Africa and the Dhow countries of the Indian Ocean region and their global diaspora.

A highlight of this edition of the Festival will be the ZIFF-UNESCO special award worth $10 000 for a film that best discusses issues of slavery – both historical and contemporary. This award will be enriched with a one-day event that will include an organised tour of specific slave route sites culminating in a three-hour discussion on issues of slavery and a presentation of one major film shown in the Amphitheatre.

With many sites of memory in Zanzibar and Tanzania in general relating to slavery, the 10th anniversary of the Festival coincides with the 200th commemoration of the abolition of slave trade. ZIFF CEO Dr Martin Mhando says: “The flagship credo of the Festival, ‘Celebration of Water and Dreams’ will be strongly reflected this year. ZIFF will endeavor to initiate stimulating and relevant dialogues between the East African and Western worlds through a series of forums and events reflecting our objectives.

“ZIFF 2007 will again be a celebration of the plurality of world cultures. Our commitment this year will be to further advance inter-cultural understanding, promote respect and facilitate broader interaction between societies through the medium of film.”

Organisers are promising another week of thought-provoking films and exciting industry events for the people of Zanzibar and ZIFF’s honored guests. For more information visit filmdept@ziff.or.tz.

If you go to Ruaha National Park,By Chris Welsch, Star Tribune

If you go to Ruaha National Park, By Chris Welsch, Star Tribune

Ruaha National Park is Tanzania's second largest, just behind Serengeti. But it is among the least seen of the country's parks, with only 2,000 visitors a year.
Unlike Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, where traffic jams of safari cars form during high season, it's rare to see another vehicle in Ruaha. There are no towns or hotels nearby. Accommodations in the park hold only about 150 people. In a park that's as big as Massachusetts, animals vastly outnumber people.

Straddling two regions -- southern and East Africa -- Ruaha plays host to an unusual mix of animals.

The park is home to more than 400 species of birds -- the most of any East African park. The names of the birds are often as amazing as their plumage: Picture red-billed oxpeckers, wing-snapping cisticolas and spotted thick-knees, and you'll know what I mean.

I marked off a depressingly scant 30 species of birds on my checklist, although I saw many more than that. My proudest sighting: an ostrich, the world's largest bird. That should count for something extra.

I visited the park in April, during the rainy season, which is probably the best time for seeing wildflowers and birds but the worst for sighting big animals. The rains produce tall grass and thick foliage that screen the animals from view. Potholes everywhere fill up with water, so the grazing animals -- impala, eland, zebra, kudu, sable -- are able to disperse throughout the park. With them go the lions, leopards and cheetahs. Most tourists hit the safari trail in January and February, when the weather in Africa is hottest and driest. Vegetation withers, the water holes dry up and animals flock to the remaining rivers and lakes, where they're easier to see. July through September is also a good time for big game viewing.

Guides in Ruaha said that during the dry seasons, it is common to see lions and leopards drinking right at the two lodges where I stayed (both were on rivers -- Mwagusi Camp on the Mwagusi River and Ruaha River Lodge on the Ruaha River). Both of these lodges have their bandas, or thatched lodgings, built close to the rivers to maximize your chances of seeing and hearing wildlife, even when you're not out looking for it.

Going on safari

There are many ways to plan a safari, ranging from a completely independent trip (a fraction of the cost but harder to arrange) on up to complete package deals that take care of every detail.

Start by doing some research. Tanzania -- safe, accessible and rich in wildlife -- is one of the most popular options.

Both lodges are run by the Fox family, which has deep roots in Tanzania. I spent two nights at each place. Mwagusi Camp is more intimate, with a maximum of 20 guests staying in posh tents by a slow-moving river. Ruaha River Lodge holds about 60 guests, who stay in stone huts spread out along a scenic stretch of the river. One of the main attractions at River Lodge is a bar/dining area built on a rocky hill with a stunning overview of the river valley. Both places offer special touches that take the rough edges off the "wilderness experience." At Ruaha River Lodge, a waiter brought coffee and biscuits to my room at sunrise so I could eat on my veranda while admiring the passing cape buffalo, giraffe and waterbuck watering in the river, which ran a dozen yards from my front door.

The food at both places is excellent, with imaginative preparations of locally grown produce, chicken and beef. I also had some excellent fresh fish at Ruaha River Lodge -- really fresh: I watched the maitre d' catch it during his afternoon break.

Mwagusi Camp has an excellent Web site at http://www.ruaha.org . There you'll find more information on the park, on the accommodations and on making arrangements to get there. Two small airlines fly direct from Dar es Salaam to Ruaha, making it pretty easy. Ruaha River Lodge is listed on the Tanzania Tourist Board's Web site, which is a handy resource for trip planning. That's at

http://www.tanzania-web.com.

Organized trips to both lodges can be booked through Tanzania Odyssey in London. The phone number is 44-171-471-8780. The agency's Web site is http://www.tanzaniaodyssey.com

A safari I'll never forget, from the Telegraph

see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/03/26/etsafari126.xml for full details

From the breathtaking Lake Manyara to the wildlife of the Ngorongoro crater, Tom Breeze was mesmerised by his African journey.

After a day or more of travelling – ripped from bed at some unearthly hour, carting baggage round railway stations, lost-the-ticket-at-the-airport fiascos, nine hours’ flying, eight of spine-jolting African roads from Nairobi to Tanzania, and a frankly very odd border crossing, it took a lot to jerk me out of the semi-comatose state I had perfected in transit. However, the first view over Lake Manyara was eye-opening, to say the least.

'The water appeared flamingo-pink for a simple reason – it was covered in stands of thousands upon thousands of flamingos'
Although the lake was the least well known of the sights on our safari’s itinerary, I found it the most compelling. The view at sunset from the Serena Lodge’s flawlessly designed poolside bar was breathtaking. The hotel perches about 1,300ft above its surroundings, overlooking the lake’s placid, flamingo-pink waters and framed by an escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. Closer inspection of the lake resulted in further amazement: the water appeared flamingo-pink for a simple reason – it was covered in stands of thousands upon thousands of flamingos.
We had been told that the lake and the spectacular scenery of the Lake Manyara national park – wide, rolling plains and forests teeming with a variety of gnarled, ancient trees – meant there was quite enough to keep you entertained for a three-hour game drive without seeing any game. In the event, neither the diversity nor the frequency of game was to disappoint. The population of tree-lions, for which Lake Manyara was originally famous, has fallen off steeply in the past 20 years or so, and these days you are privileged indeed to catch a glimpse of one. Luckily for us, Haji, our eagle-eyed guide and driver, found us both a tree-lion and the notoriously evasive cheetah, albeit at a fair distance, as well as a wealth of elephant, impala, hippopotamus and a menagerie of birdlife.
One of the most memorable days came when, after a dramatic night of electrical storms, we set off for a five-hour drive to the renowned Ngorongoro crater. Every summer the crater plays host to one of the most mesmerising spectacles in the natural world, when countless thousands of wildebeest, buffalo, zebra and gazelle migrating from the plains of the Serengeti descend on the crater and fill it almost to capacity as they search for fresh pasture.
While we were far too late for the migration, the resident population of wildlife in the area was quite enough to keep us entertained. Besides masses of buffalo and wildebeest that, even out of season, congregate in hordes of what must have been hundreds, if not thousands, the crater is also home to lion, cheetah, elephant and the endangered black rhinoceros.

Purists complain, with some justification, that over-commercialism is threatening the crater’s delicate ecosystems. We had another taste of the ambivalent benefits of tourism during a three-day trip to the Serengeti, when, at the suggestion of our guide, we broke another five-hour drive with a rather disappointing stop at a Masai village.
On the basis that this might add an interesting cultural twist to the trip, we took Haji up on the offer . Unfortunately, these particular Masai came across as more of a tourist gimmick than a genuine example of indigenous culture. However, after parting with a $50 entry “donation”, the only way to go was to accept the whole thing at face value and just enjoy ourselves. After a bit of tribal dancing, being told about the village and its traditions and having Masai souvenirs pressed on us , we were expected to cough up again for a donation for their school, which I found it hard to begrudge them.
Leaving the village with a slightly sour taste in the mouth, we forged onwards to the Serengeti, where the heavens promptly emptied – part of the worst flooding, we were told later, within living memory. Happily, the Leviathan wheels of our 4 x 4 were up to the job and we ploughed through pockmarked and waterlogged roads, catching a glimpse of the notoriously bashful leopard en route to our lodge for the night.
Ironically, my closest encounter with nature during the safari took place at the Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge. The hotel had advised us not to walk to our rooms after dark without a guard. But as a first-timer on safari, I forgot and strolled down to my room with my brother. Shortly before the dimly lit turning to the room, Jake pointed out the close proximity of a spotted hyena, approximately the size of an Irish wolfhound and possessing jaws clearly designed for slicing through flesh and bones. After a brief face-off the hyena turned and left, presumably spooked by our looks of sheer panic.
A day or so later, following another four-hour drive along roads that were fast becoming swamp-like, we arrived at the Kirawira Serena luxury tented camp in the Serengeti’s western corridor. Severe flooding and tents are perhaps not the first two things you’d pick for a great holiday. However, the tents at Kirawira were not tents in the traditional another-muddy-Glastonbury sense; these were tents with marble bathrooms, oak floors and double beds. The biggest threat to sleep was not dripping canvas but the ominous, spine-tingling roar of a nearby lion. Following a couple more days’ safari at Kirawira, we were scheduled to head to Breezes Beach Club & Spa in Zanzibar for a few days of sun, which had been absent in the Serengeti. However, the local runway was flooded and we were forced to take another five-hour drive to the nearest alternative.
Having arrived at the airstrip, which turned out to consist of a large, semi-submerged field dotted with the occasional zebra, we were informed that the 4 x 4 couldn’t tackle the terrain, turned out of the car and told to walk to the runway. One plane had already landed, but promptly got stuck on the boggy ground, and we were all asked if we could help to push it out. We pushed, the plane tipped, the fibreglass tail snapped and we were all very happy to learn that this wasn’t our plane. Once ours had landed, we shovelled in our bags while enduring snide remarks from our Aussie pilot about the Ashes and took off for Zanzibar, only to return five minutes later because of what our pilot called “a long story”.
It transpired that Geoffrey Kent – the Kent of Abercrombie & Kent – had hailed the plane mid-flight because, the pilot informed us, he had to go and meet Sting at Arusha. As you do. Bumped in style. With this latest hiccup bringing the safari to a close, I waved a rather solemn goodbye to Tanzania and prayed fervently that the next part of the holiday would be just as eventful.

Brian Jackman in the Serengeti

See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/02/03/etserengeti103.xml&page=1 for full article from the Telegraph

Want to escape your fellow tourists on safari? Opening a five-page guide, Brian Jackman recommends a visit to the Northern Serengeti - a Masai Mara without the crowds.
Only five days before I arrived in Tanzania the Serengeti was bone-dry. The wildebeest herds had long since marched north to Kenya; and at Grumeti River Camp in the Western Corridor, the long arm of the Serengeti that reaches out towards Lake Victoria, hippos were dying for want of water.
Now the kiangazi - the dry season - is over. The November rains have broken with a vengeance and the hippos can wallow to their hearts' content in the pools beyond my tent.
Across the river lie the Ruwana Plains, a classic Serengeti landscape of grass and gazelles and flat-topped thorn trees, and I love driving out there in the early mornings, looking for lions on Masira Hill before returning to camp for breakfast - eggs and bacon, Kilimanjaro coffee, fresh raspberries flown in from Arusha - while paradise flycatchers with rufous tails flit through the acacias above my table.
I wish I could stay longer, but Grumeti River Camp is an idyllic prelude. What I really want is to explore the secret valleys and forgotten hills of the Northern Serengeti, and an old friend has volunteered to take me there.
Paul Oliver, who comes from Norfolk, moved to Tanzania 20 years ago and is now one of the country's most respected safari guides. We have arranged to meet at Seronera, in the heart of the park, and from there we set off in his distinctive coffee-brown, custom-built Land Rover.
"This is as far as most visitors get," says Paul, as we head into the northern woodlands. And it's true. Once we've crossed the Orangi River we do not see another vehicle until we hit camp.
It takes us seven hours to reach Paul's private mobile safari campsite. We could have flown - there's an airstrip nearby - but only when you travel overland does the sheer size of Africa's most famous national park impress itself upon you.
The Kenyan border is just a few miles from camp, and in coming here I have realised a lifetime's ambition. On the other side lies the Maasai Mara national reserve, an area as familiar to me as the Dorset hills of home. How many times have I stood there, staring down into Tanzania and longing to follow the migrating wildebeest on their long journey south?
Now here I am, on a granite hill called Wogakuria, surrounded by ancient fig trees and giant kopjes (hills) that echo to the roar of lions, and right now, with the wildebeest all around us, there is nowhere else I would rather be.
No wonder Myles Turner, last of the old-time Serengeti wardens, loved this place. Wogakuria is the highest point for miles around, and what you get from its boulder-strewn slopes is a vulture's eye-view, an immense panorama of yellow plains, mapped with the green veins of seasonal watercourses and speckled with grazing herds of game.
From our campsite I can look deep into the Mara. At night the lights of Keekorok Safari Lodge glitter in the darkness, some 40 miles away; and next morning I can see the hot-air balloons rising from Little Governors' Camp, and know that vehicles by the score will be fanning out over the reserve in search of big cats. But, on our side of the border, we have it all to ourselves.
Off-track driving is still allowed in the north, and over the next two days we explore the maze of nameless valleys around Wogakuria. The gift of rain has renewed the land and, wherever we go, there is life.
Oribi - dainty antelopes with black-button noses - browse on green lawns that were dust and stubble a week ago. Klipspringers stare at us from the kopjes, standing on tiptoe like ballet dancers, and herds of eland with chalk-striped flanks and swinging dewlaps trot away at our approach.
There are birds, too: shrikes and orioles, hornbills and wood hoopoes, and a monstrous pair of lappet-faced vultures with livid skulls and meat-hook beaks. "Nature's can-openers," Paul Oliver calls them.
Elephants are moving solemnly across the plains below and, when we stop above a broad valley to scan the far side with binoculars, a lion swims into focus, picking its way between the rocks. I can see it is a male, a magnificent specimen with a heavy mane
This is paradise found. It's like the Maasai Mara I knew 30 years ago, with animals as far as the eye can see, and huge river crossings when the migration is passing through. You can spend a whole day, as I did, in which the only other vehicle we saw was a national park Land Rover full of armed rangers in green combat fatigues.
How could this idyllic corner of the Serengeti have been overlooked for so long?
To find out you have only to drive past the Fort Knox-style guard post at Kogatende on the Mara River. Until a couple of years ago this was bandit country, with heavily armed poaching gangs swarming down from the Isuria escarpment to prey on wildlife and tourists alike. Now, the worst of the poachers have fled. Their campfires are cold and the north is safe again for visitors.
The Tanzanians are keen to attract more tourists but, at present, the only other camp in the north-west is Sayari, overlooking the Mara River. Like Paul's hideaway at Wogakuria it is a seasonal camp with eight spacious tents, each with king-size beds and en-suite showers, offering standards of luxury unknown in Myles Turner's days.
From Sayari it is only a short drive into the Lamai Wedge, a sublime sweep of rolling savannah between the Mara River and the Kenyan border. The contrast with the rock-strewn hillsides and fig-tree groves of Wogakuria could not be greater. Here, the land is open to the sky, an endless sea of grass in which Thomson's gazelles race this way and that, like shoals of fish. The wind carries the sounds of the plains, the sad cries of pipits, the shriek of crowned plovers, and to the north lies a range of enigmatic flat-topped hills, marking the border with the Maasai Mara.
Steadily we climb towards them, scouring the grasslands for cheetahs. There are lions aplenty, resting in the croton thickets and on the long stony ridges where they can catch the breeze.
But the cheetahs Paul saw a week ago have moved on in the wake of the wildebeest herds, leaving only the slouching shapes of spotted hyenas and the remains of old kills picked clean by vultures.
It's a shame to have missed out on the cheetahs but I have one last chance to find them. After four blissful days in the north-west, Paul drops me off at Klein's Camp, a private 24,800-acre game reserve on the park's north-east boundary.
Al Klein was a big- game hunter, an American who hung out here in the 1920s. The name has stuck but the ethos has changed. These days Klein's Camp is managed by CC Africa, the Johannesburg-based travel company that also runs Grumeti River Camp. Conservation is its watchword and I have come here to join Tanzania Under Canvas, a new seasonal camp that puts you in the midst of the wildebeest migration.
This is luxury camping in a wild land. My tent - marquee would be a better word - is furnished with Persian rugs and lit by crystal chandeliers. The food is unfailingly delicious and I have even been given my own butler, Ben, a soft-spoken paragon with impeccable manners, who brings my early-morning tea.
But, as always on a good safari, the greatest luxury is a good location, and ours, overlooking a hidden valley in the Kuka Hills, is Hemingway's Africa at its best. Cape buffaloes scowl from its thorny thickets and it's a long time since I have encountered such feisty lions.
On one game drive we track down a coalition of five young males, fired up with testosterone and looking for trouble. One, a wild-looking tearaway with an ASBO attitude, decides to stalk our vehicle and then chase us as we drive away.
There's a river in the valley bottom, trickling from pool to pool under a dark canopy of fig trees. It is the Grumeti - the same river that flows through the Western Corridor to Lake Victoria - and its source is in the hills above. My guide, Daniel Nyamoga, tells me this is a famous place for leopards. But as so often happens in Africa we chance upon something quite different and, in its own way, no less dramatic: a martial eagle, like an emblem from a heraldic banner, glaring at us with mad yellow eyes.
On we go in the last hour of daylight and it is then, with the Kuka Hills already in shadow, that we find a cheetah on the plains and watch her methodically sniff out a topi fawn in the long grass while its mother stands helpless nearby.
Back at camp, I hear there is a pack of 18 wild dogs in the hills of Loliondo, just outside the park, and Daniel knows a tracker who will take me to their den next morning.
Loliondo is Maasai country, and we drive for miles past thornbush stockades and red-robed herd-boys with flocks of goats until we reach a range of hills. From here, it's a 40-minute hike to the den.
We climb steadily, without talking. The tracker's "thousand-miler" sandals, cut from the treads of discarded car tyres, make no sound on the wooded slopes. He is armed only with a spear.
From the bushes up ahead comes a gruff bark. The tracker points, and there are the dogs. With their big round ears they are unmistakable and their brindled coats blend perfectly with the dappled shade. No wonder their Swahili name is mbwa mwitu: the dogs of the forest.
There are only three, left behind to guard the den while the rest of the pack is hunting, and no sign of the pups, but I don't care. Wild dogs are a vanishing species. It is 25 years since I last saw them in East Africa, and to know they are still here is hugely encouraging. For a few precious moments we sit and watch them. By now they have become accustomed to our presence, and lie quietly at the entrance to the den while from all around come the throbbing cries of Cape turtledoves.
Whenever I think of the Serengeti it is always the big cats that spring to mind and this safari has been no different. In just 10 days I have seen two cheetahs and nearly 60 lions. But long after I have returned home it is the image of those three dogs that haunts me, as wild and mysterious as Africa itself.D
Serengeti basics
Brian Jackman's safari was arranged by Okavango Tours and Safaris (020 8343 3283, http://www.okavango.com/). A week with Paul Oliver (three nights at Wogakuria and three nights at Sayari) costs £4,446 per person. A week combining three nights at CC Africa's Grumeti River Camp and three nights with Tanzania Under Canvas at the Klein's Camp Concession costs £4,893 per person. Tanzania Odyssey (020 7471 8780, http://www.tanzaniaodyssey.com/) also offers safaris.

Kate Humble climbs Mount Meru - from the Independent

See http://travel.independent.co.uk/africa/article2364646.ece for full details

Take a peak: Tanzania's magnificent Mount Meru
Tanzania is famous for the much-climbed Kilimanjaro. But a less well-known and equally challenging mountain sits nearby. Kate Humble took a dizzying trek up magical, mist-covered Meru
Published: 17 March 2007
It's easy to believe that Tanzania has only one mountain. Kilimanjaro is justifiably famous: at 5,895m, it's not just the highest mountain in Africa, it is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world. Better still, apart from calling for a good level of fitness, climbing it doesn't requiremountaineering skills.
Every year, more than 25,000 Gore-Tex-clad souls trudge up the slopes of "Kili". If they make the summit and are lucky enough to get a clear view, they will see that Tanzania does, in fact, have other mountains. One of them is Mount Meru, which stands in the little-visited Arusha National Park and which I had come here to scale.
Arusha can't compete with the Serengeti on size or diversity but it is spectacularly pretty, with lakes and forests and its own mini Ngorongoro crater. There are no lion or cheetah, but there are hyena, leopard and elephant. There has been an eight-year drought in the region, but when we visited recently the rains had finally come and the bush was lush once more.
We saw buffalo, troops of baboons, wallowing warthogs and docile waterbuck. We spotted tiny, twiggy-legged impala and stocky, robust little zebras, perfect miniatures of the adults. Bushes and trees were all sprouting, and in a forest of acacias we discovered more than 30 giraffe delicately plucking the new shoots from among the thorns with their long, black tongues.
My very first trip to Africa, 20 years ago, got me excited about birds. The first glimpse of a lilac-breasted roller - common as muck all over sub-Saharan Africa - and wham! You're hooked. It's not just the evocative name, it's the vibrancy of its plumage and the fact that it perches for an obligingly long time on the end of branches, or on telegraph wires, making it easy to spot, watch and photograph. Then there are the bee-eaters, the kingfishers (far less elusive than our own), the pale chanting goshawks - all spectacular, and all easy to identify.
My husband Ludo and I met up with our guide, Mark Baker, whose prodigious knowledge was inherited from his parents, who have spent the past quarter-century travelling the length and breadth of Tanzania collecting data for the most comprehensive encyclopaedia of birds ever attempted. The beauty of birding with someone on their "patch" is that we saw things we would never otherwise have spotted. Olive white-eyes hopped about, almost perfectly camouflaged in the branches of a fig tree; darting, iridescent sunbirds; a paradise flycatcher - the male, with his orange streamer of a tail - and what Mark described as a "good bird", an Abyssinian thrush, is rarely seen, yet was pecking for insects just a few metres away from us. In a thickly wooded area, we sat just watching and listening. A streak of red flashed across the track in front of us and was gone. "Narina Trogon!" exclaimed Mark. "You often see them here but if they don't fly, it's almost impossible to spot them." The startling red is revealed only in flight, otherwise the bird, which tucks itself away high in the tree canopy, merges with the leaves.
We searched, scanning the branches. Through my binoculars I picked up something black and white with fur, rather than feathers: Colobus monkeys, a pair, grooming and unaware they were being watched.
A bank of cloud was bubbling up on the horizon, promising rain. Mark dropped us off at one of the park's so-called "special campsites" where we were greeted by Bonaventure (a guide), Menase (a cook), mugs of tea and one of the most beautiful spots to pitch a tent I've ever seen.
"There's your mountain," said Bonaventure. Looming above us was the craggy outline of Mount Meru.
At 4,566m, it ranks as the fifth-highest mountain in Africa, but is climbed by only a few hundred, rather than a few thousand, people a year. Like Kilimanjaro, it is an extinct volcano. The last time it erupted the explosion tore a great chunk out of the side of the crater, leaving what had been described to me as a "knife-edged ridge" to the summit. As someone who has a healthy fear of falling off things, the knife-edged ridge looked impossibly foreboding from where we were standing. But before I could get cold feet, rain clouds hid the mountain and Menase announced the chicken was cooked. "Eat! Eat! Eat!" he urged. "You need plenty of energy for tomorrow." So we feasted and retired to our tent as the rain fell and a hyena's whooping call reverberated through the trees.
"That's quite a big herd of buffalo," said Ludo, "and it looks like we're going to have to walk straight through it." We watched as Menase, who had set off with the porters ahead of us, stopped at the edge of the herd, clapped his hands and shouted.
Buffalo are belligerent creatures at the best of times and can be downright dangerous. This lot regarded Menase with the sort of expression perfected by Catherine Tate, before deciding to move, oh so slowly, just off the path. I saw Mechama, a park ranger, tighten his grip on his gun.
We saw a lot of wildlife, thanks largely to the fact that Mechama, in front, walked with exaggerated slowness as if he was playing grandmother's footsteps. As someone who tends to charge up hills, this was infuriating. "Deal with it," said Ludo, "he's got the gun and we need to stay together. If you go racing off you might get eaten."
I plodded on, sulking, until the peace was shattered by a strangled squawking. Hornbills. We stopped to look at them and at the same time noticed a giraffe and then a herd of zebra. Swallowtail butterflies flitted past us and crickets scattered beneath our boots. We crossed grassy plains, boulder-hopped over rivers and walked through a forest of ancient mossy trees following the tracks of a leopard imprinted in the mud. And the climb of 1,250m from the park gate to the first camp at Miriakamba felt * * effortless. Arriving blister-free and perky, we settled down on the grass outside the huts in the sun, watching the white-necked ravens and both silently thinking that this climb was going to be a breeze - until a group arrived from the opposite direction.
Mount Meru is climbed in three or four days. The first night is spent at Miriakamba, the second at the Saddle. The walk to the summit begins at around 2am on the third morning, and climbers will then either descend to Miriakamba that same day or push on, as we intended to do, and reach the park gates at the end of the third day. The 10 bedraggled, mud-spattered people who came straggling into camp scattering walking poles and sodden ponchos had attempted the summit that morning.
"Bloody hell, they look half-dead," Ludo observed. "It was tough," one of them admitted later, fortified by hot food and cold beer. We were standing outside the dining hut. The cloud, which had shrouded the peak all day, had cleared and it stood out, a hard, black outline against the night sky. "It was very cold and very windy. It took over six hours to get to the summit and the climb was much harder than I imagined."
I was about to ask him about the ridge, but I had heard enough already to render me sleepless. "You awake?" I whispered to Ludo from my bunk. "Yes," came the muffled reply from the depths of his sleeping bag. "That guy was Austrian. He spends his life climbing mountains. And he had all that kit - gloves, waterproof everything, poles. And he still found it really tough and really cold. We're going to die up there."
We had what we thought we'd need to climb a not-particularly-high mountain - good boots, gaiters, a warm layer and a waterproof coat. It appeared we were seriously under-equipped. Unbeknownst to us, Bonaventure was on the case. A hugely experienced mountain guide, he'd kept a careful eye on us, constantly urging us to drink plenty of water - "Your pee must be clear and copious!" - and to eat enough.
The following morning he joined us for Menase's hearty mountain-climbers' breakfast - porridge, eggs, bacon, toast, cake - with a bundle under his arm. He unravelled two pairs of waterproof trousers - Menase's own pair for Ludo and a voluminous, startlingly turquoise pair for me, loaned by the camp supervisor for $5. They would make all the difference and Bonaventure's thoughtfulness couldn't have been better timed. Moments later, thunder heralded blinding sheets of rain.
We sat it out until it eased to a drizzle and then began to climb - slowly, slowly, up steep wooden steps built against the sheer muddy side of the mountain. The forest we were walking through was full of flowers, butterflies and buzzing beetles.
When the steps ran out the going got harder, the wet mud sticky and slippery, but at Mechama's steady 2km per hour we made good progress and before long we noticed that the vegetation had completely changed. We'd left the trees behind and were walking through giant heathers and clumps of yellow-flowered St John's wort. A series of switchbacks gave us our first glimpse of the camp perched on a saddle between the peaks of Mount Meru and Little Meru.
As soon as we stopped walking we realised how much colder it was here, 1,000m above the last camp. We sat huddled in the communal area of the sleeping hut surrounded by dripping gloves, hats and raincoats. The front step was crowded with abandoned pairs of sodden boots and around the tables sat a glum crowd, hunched against the cold. Finally I plucked up the courage to ask whether they had made it to the summit that morning.
"We had rain, then sleet, then hail, then snow," shivered a German woman. "I have never been so wet and so cold." Bonaventure had told us as we walked up Little Meru, a gentle hour's plod above camp, that only five of a group of 14 had made it to the summit that morning.
The summit of Little Meru was shrouded in thick cloud when we reached the cairn at 3,801m. The peak of Meru was totally obscured. We started back down, only to round a bend and see that the clouds had parted - and there was Kilimanjaro, in all her snowy glory, standing like a giant baked Alaska in a sea of cloud. "And look at that!" cried Bonaventure, and we turned 180 degrees to see the whole of Meru revealed and, just visible, the flag that marks the summit. It looked very, very far away.
I was too nervous to sleep. To get to the summit, all we had to do was gain 800m in altitude. And not fall off the knife-edged ridge. At 1am, as we were struggling into our boots, I considered bowing out, but Menase, who wasn't even coming to the summit with us, had got up to make us good-luck porridge. Our little band set off an hour later, Mechama in front, Bonaventure at the back, Ludo and I between them, walking in the beam of our head torches.
The air was absolutely still and it was dry. "Don't think about the ridge, don't think about the ridge," I muttered in time with my steps. I looked up to the round-shouldered mass of Rhino Point above us and saw a pin-prick of light. I assumed it was the head torch of one of the group that had set off earlier, but then I looked again. "It's a star!"
The sky was clearing. We could see lights in the valley and above us more and more stars started to appear. We were walking on what appeared to be a ridge of black volcanic sand, but it was wide, flat and easy to walk on. "This is fine," I thought, "not knife-edged at all."
All my fears dissipated and I realised I was grinning. Not for long. The path ended and was replaced by a rock face, along which we had to inch on tiny footholds with what appeared, in the dark, to be a bottomless drop below us. I froze, palms sweating, breathing hard. "I can't do this." Mechama was getting further ahead. I couldn't move. Then a warm hand grasped mine and Bonaventure stood between me and the gaping abyss. "Don't hold the rock, hold me," he said and marched me firmly across before I could utter a squeak of protest.
Wobbly with relief, we began a long, steep climb through sand and then a scramble between pillars and pinnacles of lava. Suddenly I realised I was going to be all right.
Black against the dark sky, craggy peaks rose above us. We walked beneath an overhang, along a ledge. Light began to take the edge off the darkness and below us we could make out wonderfully chaotic lava sculptures, a jumble of crags and spikes and boulders. Another calf-burning sand slope and it felt like we were getting close. Ludo leant against a rock. He looked dreadful - ashen and sickly. "Just need to rest a bit," he croaked. It was the altitude.
Bonaventure persuaded him to drink some water, even though he didn't want it, and after a few minutes we were able to go on. Stopping and starting we inched our way upwards, Bonaventure watching Ludo all the time. Suddenly, I spotted the flag that marks the summit; pain and exhaustion were forgotten instantly, and euphoria took over. A final scramble and we'd made it.
The sun had come up, the cloud had followed it, we were surrounded by thick, ghostly mist and couldn't see a thing. But it didn't matter. We'd done it. Now all we had to do was get down.
TRAVELLER'S GUIDE
GETTING THERE
Dar Es Salaam is served from Heathrow by British Airways (0870 850 9850; http://www.ba.com/). Coastal Aviation (http://www.coastal.cc/) offersflights from Dar Es Salaam to Arusha.
CLIMBING THERE
Tanzania Odyssey (020-7471 8780; http://www.tanzaniaodyssey.com/) can arrange a similar trek from £870 per person. The price includes two nights' B&B in Arusha, three nights' full board on the climb and a guide. Flights not included.

Great Migration Update

Migration Update - March 28th 2007

Over the last three weeks, we have only had sporadic and patchy showers in the general short grass plain area. This means that some areas have started to dry out whilst others remain green. The Ndutu area seems to be dryer than most, and so the main concentration of the herd that were south of Ndutu have moved westwards, and are on the medium grass plans between Ndutu and Kusini.There are still scattered, but decent numbers over the whole short grass plains area, and all other game sightings remain excellent. The weather forecast for the next week predicts more of the same. We would expect the migration to stay in this general area for a few more weeks to come

Pongwe and Shooting Star

Both have opened new infinity pools for the new season.

Ruaha National Park, long may it remain untouched but for the lucky few

Yet again Ruaha has proved itself as the best park in Southern Tanzania!

Ruaha National Park has a drama quite unlike any other Tanzanian park; safari connoisseurs have for years regarded it as one of Tanzania’s finest; the land has its own kind of remoteness, an ancient place in the Great Rift Valley where mile upon mile of age-old sandy red earth has been worn and bleached by the sun, and the hilly distances are punctuated with the distended elephant-battered girths of countless massive baobabs, as many as a thousand years old. The combination of ochre-red earth, pale russet grasses and the parched paths of wide sand rivers appeal to images of an archetypal African land.

Part of the present-day attraction of Ruaha is its distant location which demands a flight to get there. The result is a park that is visited by few tourists, major tracts of the landscape are still largely inaccessible. Covering 10,300 square kilometres, Ruaha is the second largest national park in Tanzania after the Serengeti. Surrounded by vast escarpments the park begins on the high plateau around Njombe River in the northwest and slopes across a wide valley to the Great Ruaha River in the southeast. The scenery is simply spectacular.

The Game

Plenty of heavy duty wildlife lays claim to Ruaha’s hilly savannah and bush. The park has one of the greatest populations of elephant of any African park, famed for East Africa’s largest ever tusks and the dry open hillsides encourage antelope and buffalo to gather into large herds. Where there are large buffalo herds lion are always found in good numbers; Ruaha is famous for its unusually large prides, often numbering 20 plus. The terrain is also particularly good for leopard and the open plains, known locally as the mini Serengeti, are good for cheetah. The parks also contains a large population of approximately 100 African hunting (Wild) dog. Ruaha is the only east African park with both Greater and Lesser Kudu, and sable and roan antelopes and, like the Selous, has an unusual combination of East and Southern African wildlife and birds. 450 species have been recorded

Mozambique, a Tanzania beach add on

Quirimbas Archipelago in Northern Mozambique; the perfect beach add on!

Options for accommodation as follows;

Quilalea
A fabulous 9 cottage lodge located on a stunning private island just off the coast of Pemba. Attention to detail at Quilalea is staggering, great feel, character and charm, superb diving, great food; this is without doubt one of Africa’s finest beach lodges.
Guide Price £220pppn

Vamizi
The flagship lodge of the ‘Maluane Project’; one of Africa’s most pioneering tourism initiatives. 12 huge, lavish rooms spread over a truly beautiful beach (7km long!). Unchartered diving, great food and service. Again, one of Africa’s best beach lodges…..if not THE best. This lodge has the best beach in Africa!
Guide Price £375pppn

Guludo
New eco lodge on the mainland coast. Great unique design and the best example of responsible tourism around. Set on 12km’s of untouched beach it’s a great option and superb value compared with the other 2 lodges mentioned.
Guide Price £130pppn

Phone us for a chat about them 0044 (0) 2074718780