Travel Life
Wildebeest migration across the African plains
marauding hippo. T e wine was terrible and where was the cappuccino? You see, I come from a metropolitan family. My children are just as bad. T e tiniest spider in our house in west London sends them into paroxysms of terror, and their gastronomic range is severely limited. T en there were the jabs and the anti-malarials to consider, plus of course, the cost. Safaris are notoriously expensive. However, we were lucky. I have some very old, very close friends who have a farm on Lake Naivasha, north of Nairobi. “Darling,” said Julie, “don’t be silly, there’s no malaria up here, the elevation’s way too high.” Still, we took the anti-malarials, with no side eff ects at all. Safaris bought via the big operators in the UK fall into two camps – the super deluxe, and the conveyor-belt package. I couldn’t aff ord the former and was determined to avoid the latter – what fun is a crowded mess tent with mediocre food and a convoy of safari buses? But with a bit of research, you can do what the locals do and fi nd a smaller camp that’s off the beaten track, and without paying the huge mark-ups of the middle-men. So with friends on the ground, we were able to shortcut this process and
Leopard and game: It’s a brutal business in the bush
found a wonderful camp in one of the Mara Conservancies, called Duma camp. Not many people know about these
Conservancies. T ey are protected areas outside the main Masai Mara Game Park, which the KWS (Kenyan Wildlife Service) has opened up to smaller, more eco-friendly camps, hoping to avoid the mass tourism of the larger lodges in and around the Mara. T e camps here run a lot of educational activities on conservation for their clients, especially children, and the perils facing wildlife in Kenya – not least Chinese ivory poaching, which has arrived hand in hand with massive Chinese investment in the country. Needless to say, the three nights we spent
there were amazing. Unlike most camps, Duma is not done up like a feature in House & Garden, but is a real bush camp of just six tents and no generator, with solar-powered lighting and lanterns at night, a basic Mess tent, and eating under the stars. Sure, the detailing was not perfect – the picnic lunches were a bit basic and the hot water in the showers (heated via a large log fi re) only materialised for one night out of three – but still, these inconveniences were outweighed by the price (a third of what you would pay elsewhere), the fact we
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Safaris fall into two camps - the super deluxe and the conveyor- belt package. I couldn’t aff ord one and was determined to avoid the other
Quilly Erskine game-watching from the top of a Land Rover
www.fi rstelevenmagazine.co.uk Autumn 2011 FirstEleven 69
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