In late February and March, 1999, my husband Jim and I went to East Africa with two close friends, Chrysanne and Jerry. Our safari covered just one small area of Kenya and Tanzania--north as far as Lake Baringo, south and west as far as the Serengeti, and east as far as Mt. Kenya. We traveled during that region's dry season, right before the long rains traditionally begin.

The entire trip was organized for just the four of us by a native Kenyan,Tim Lapage, who runs his African Adventures company out of Park City, Utah. The safari was a mixture of experiences--active and passive, exciting and relaxed, rustic and luxurious, focused on the wildlife and wilderness as well as on the culture. Accommodations ranged from two-person tents at a private campsite to a hidden, sybaritic retreat once featured in the magazine Architectural Digest--and everything in between! Because the roads in this part of the world are bone-jarringly bumpy, we chartered private single engine planes to travel from one place to the next, at Tim's recommendation. This customized approach to our safari gave us the best of everything -- the security of a prepared itinerary normally only afforded by large group tours coupled with both individual attention and the freedom of independent travel.

Our safari begins at the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro, at a small hideaway called Ol Donyo Wuas, owned by a safari operator turned innkeeper and honorary game warden. Our cottage, one of five, is situated in the middle of a vast rolling plain, on land leased from the Maasai. It is completely open on one side, offering a view of the legendary (and elusive) snow-capped mountain. There is no electricity and the plumbing grumbles and groans, but it is somehow very romantic.	The entrance of our cottage.
		Activities at Ol Donyo Wuas are led by Danny, our Maasai guide. Whatever we want to do, he arranges--including long walks among the wild animals, game drives, meals in the bush, and trips to the nearby Maasai village. On one early morning game walk, we see two giraffes spotlit by the rising sun, with Mt. Kili a beautiful backdrop.

Across the sweeping amber plains, through the calf-high bush of the savanna we go, in the direction of a watering hole where Danny promises many animals. (Danny leads the way, a spear in his hand, just in case.) As we cross the field, we see a Maasai warrior and his cattle walking purposefully in the same direction. The red of his toga-like garment and the dark bodies of the cattle stand out against the monotonous yellow of the terrain. Though still early, the sun melts into the tops of our heads like butter on a hot biscuit. After ten minutes of walking, we are all drenched in sweat, and the watering hole doesn't seem much closer. We are all wanting to rebel, in a polite way of course. The watering hole can wait for another day. We've been walking for three hours and we're starving! (But we follow Danny anyway…too ashamed to admit he's worn us out.)

And then, he leads us up a gentle rise and down the other side, and suddenly we see a sweeping flat-topped acacia--with what looks like a picnic table underneath.

Danny turns to smile at our surprised faces.

It is our first breakfast in the bush, complete with washstand, soap, and water for a quick clean up, comfy camp chairs, and well-appointed table. Smoke rises from a nearby bush – the campfire that will cook our al fresco meal. As we eat, we pause to look at all manner of birds through our binoculars, intensely aware that our Western Type A behavior is changing in the magical African sun.

After breakfast, we ride around the property, high atop the benches of a Land Rover, to the cage and campsite set up for "Bad Boy," an orphaned 10-month old male cheetah that is being cared for our hosts. The cheetah cub is temporarily being kept in a large cage while his handler is off tracking a rogue elephant with the owner of the property. Though hunting is illegal in Kenya, certain exceptions are made -- as in this case, when a wounded elephant has killed a Maasai and repercussions are feared. We cautiously take turns petting "Bad Boy" -- and later see his relatives out in the wild during a late afternoon game drive.
		"Bad Boy"
Danny takes us for a walk into the Maasai village, or boma, where he lives. Around the boma is a thorny fence designed to protect the people and livestock from lion attacks. In the middle of the boma is a similarly fenced-in area where the livestock are kept at night. There are elders, mature men with their heads shaved . . . warriors with elaborately braided coiffures and stretched earlobes, carrying spears. . . . women dressed in colorful cloth and leather and beads with children tied to their back.	Inside, the Maasai mud-and-dung houses are partitioned into living/eating and sleeping areas, with a small fire smoldering in the center. (This photo and next two by J. O'Neill)

( Click TOC to return to the Table of Contents: TOC)

Days 4-5: Camping out in the Serengeti

We cross the border into Tanzania and spend several nights in a private tented camp arranged locally by Hoopoe Adventure Tours in the southeastern corner of the Serengeti National Park. The camp is located where the wildebeest migration was to have been 'in progress,' but the lack of rain has left the vast plain beyond our tents parched and empty.

Our guide for this part of the trip is Mtili, a man of the Timburu community with a mellow personality, a great sense of humor, and years of experience as a park ranger. He calls us ladies "Mama" (which I later learn is the Swahili way to address any woman over the age of 21) and shows us the proper greeting - a complicated handshake in three parts in which he holds your thumb in his fist and shakes it, then shakes your hand, then once more, the thumb -- and gives us a crash course in Swahili. When we want to stop to enjoy the wild life, he tells us, we must say si moma; when we are ready to go, we must say twende. Anything else is of no importance because this is our safari and he is our willing guide.

Days are spent in a Land Rover driving short, bumpy distances to 'greener pastures' in the north. There we see thousands of wildebeest, zebra and antelope. They congregate on the parched savanna like desperate smokers in a designated smoking area, grazing what's left of the only remaining grass, waiting for the rains to come, becoming one vast carpet of dull brown and white and black. (Wildebeests - or gnus as they are also called - are animals straight out of Dr. Suess. They are about the size of a moose, with oversized heads and swaybacked bodies on top of dainty legs and feet. When they run, the lower their head to the ground, as if their eyes are at the top of their head.)

 photo by J. O'Neill

Though we aren't allowed outside our vehicle in the park, the animals are not shy and come right up to us. At night, under canvas, we imagine all kinds of beasts lurking about despite the apparent lack of wild life adjacent to our campsite.

We see many interesting animal behaviors in the Serengeti -- a lioness stalking a reed buck only three yards from our vehicle! (Do we root for the skinny lioness or for her graceful prey?)

And, later, our first poignant encounter-- about 30 hyena who are scavenging the carcass of a wildebeest (most likely killed by a lion). Near the dead animal is a trembling baby wildebeest. It is our first slap from Mother Nature, but when we express our dismay, Mtili reacts stoically. "It is nature, Mama. That's it," he says, gracing us with a sad smile from the front of the Land Rover.

But we are easily distracted from such weighty thoughts, as, every few minutes, something new appears on the landscape, not paying us the slightest attention . . . Roused blue-helmeted guinea fowl burst from the short grass next to our tires . . . Eagles soar overhead . . . And an elegant white ibis poses beside a swamp looking like a Japanese print come to life. We even see the elusive knee-high dik-dik, the smallest antelope.

Near a waterhole are a half a dozen species of antelope and zebras splashing in and out of a waterhole, engaging in noisy horseplay and barking like dogs (we think out of fun -- until we see the surface of the swamp sprout heavy-lidded crocodile eyes).

(Click TOC to return to the Table of Contents: TOC)

After overdosing on the Serengeti, we spend a day sightseeing around Olduvai gorge (the site of Richard and Mary Leakey's archeological finds) enroute to the Ngorongoro Crater -- a magnificent ancient crater formed from a volcanic mountain thought to be taller than Kilimanjaro. The first night we walk to the top of the crater rim, one-half mile above the cup-shaped crater. Mist rises from one of the crater's soda lakes and catches the waning light, turning dusk to Dawn. Up here the air is quite chilly and full of moisture, and the lush vegetation looks like that found on the Big Island of Hawaii. It's hard to believe that the dry Serengeti plain is so close by.

Below are pictures of the 100-square mile crater from the crater floor. Standing here, watching an elephant against the surreal backdrop, I feel as if I'm in the Garden of Eden.

We enjoy ourselves so much (lost ourselves in the Lost World), we miss the closing time of the park by four minutes and have to pay a fine the next day! (Mtili is crushed even though we are all clearly to blame...)

(Click TOC to return to the Table of Contents: TOC)

This is Jock, a resident of Giraffe Manor, a 1920s house outside Nairobi in the posh suburb of Karen (named after Karen Blixen). (See Giraffe Manor.) It was bought in the 1980s by Betty Leslie-Melville, also known as the Giraffe Lady, the person usually credited with saving the Rothschild giraffe sub-species from extinction. (You can tell Rothschild giraffes from other species by their white leggings.) As you can see, the giraffes come out of the surrounding forest every morning to attend breakfast at the manor.

The grounds of the manor are also home to a family of shy warthogs.

This is our rondavel at Lewa Downs, a working cattle ranch near Mt. Kenya. It has been owned by one family since the 1920s, and has as its goal the coexistence of domestic animals, wild life, and humans. It is entirely self-sufficient, with organic gardens, cheese making, weaving, and furniture making going on at all times. It is also a horse and cattle ranch, with five cottages on the 60,000 acres for guests, and a private black rhino breeding sanctuary. The BBC does a lot of filming here; they had just left with films of a rare black leopard.

Dinner at the ranch--featuring fresh fruits and vegetables from the garden--is served around 8, leaving just enough time before bed for a night game drive. If you're lucky like we were, you'll be there during a full moon, for at the equator, when there is a full moon, the sun sets in the west at the exact moment that the full moon rises in the east. Spectacular!

 (Click TOC to return to the Table of Contents: TOC)

Our last three nights are spent in a remote area of Kenya, at a retreat overlooking the Mukutan Gorge and the Great Rift Valley. This sybaritic retreat was designed by its Italian-turned-Kenyan owner, Kuki Gallman, whose book, I Dreamed of Africa, is presently being made into a movie (due out November 1999). Kim Bassinger was chosen to play Kuki's role -- a good choice physically, were it not for Kuki's distinct Italian accent.

The moment we see Mukutan's central building and three cottages - all thatched roof rondavels -we understand why they were featured in Architectural Digest in May 1995 shortly after their completion. They are situated at the edge of a hill that drops off into the gorge, at the bottom of which is a wildlife salt lick.

The buildings are beautifully designed, in keeping with the dramatic surroundings, and exquisitely appointed, down to the smallest details. We are the only guests. I choose the West cottage solely for its cliff-hanging bathtub. The centerpiece of the circular building is a see-through stone fireplace with a chimney leading up to a three-story-high thatched roof.

Life at Mukutan is simple -- and luxurious. The walks are more rigorous here and the roads much more rugged. At the same time, because of its remoteness and the fact that most of the ranch is covered in wild African sage brush, the animals are hidden, shy, and more difficult to observe -- so when you do come across a Cape buffalo on a walk or see a rhino cross the road in front of your vehicle, it is somehow more special.

It feels like the real Africa, even if it does look like a Hollywood set.

Kuki joins us for lunch one afternoon after a long walk through the bush and consents to a photo opportunity. Her stories of Africa and the upcoming movie of her life keep us entertained through a 'light' lunch of homemade pasta, eland (antelope) scallopine, and all kinds of salads and fresh fruits. You understand the minute you meet her why Hollywood is making a movie of her life.

 During our three-hour lunch Kuki tells us about how she is plotting to influence the sound track of the film about her life. She wants to use a local type of music, sung by Pokot women. "It will be every bit as stirring as the music from Out of Africa," she claims. "You’ll see--if I can just get them to listen to me," she says in a husky voice that is part Zsa Zsa Gabor, part Sophia Loren.

"Well, you must let them think they’ve come up with the idea," Chrysanne offers. To which Kuki smiles a Mona Lisa smile. (Like preaching to the choir, I can’t help but think.)

And she tells us how upset she is that Hollywood has filmed most of her life story in dry, dusty South Africa instead of the lush location of the Mukutan Gorge. She seems to bear no grudges, however, about the changes they’ve made to her book, though a scene with Kim Bassinger on a bull dozer causes her to laugh. "After all, I am a ranch owner in Africa. If you own a ranch in Kenya, " she sniffs, "you will have people to work for you. Someone to drive your bull dozer...You would not be doing it on your own. It is ridiculous to think of!" She pauses, tosses back a lock of her pale hair. "The first script writer was too much a feminist, I think," she finishes.

Kuki's 100,000 acre ranch is also a private black rhino breeding sanctuary. In addition, it is home to over twenty horses, which Kuki claims she breeds "for lion food." Sad to say, she tells us, not long ago, four colts were killed in just one night by a roving lioness. ("That's nature, mama," as Mtili would say.)

On our last day, we visit a hot springs for a private soak and take a long, long walk and think how hard it will be to leave this beautiful country.

 (Click TOC to return to the Table of Contents: TOC)

The last day at Mukutan Chrysanne breaks her pelvis in a freak accident that could have happened anywhere. Kuki's staff pitches in and makes sure she is comfortable until the next day when we depart for Nairobi. (Making her comfortable includes a wonderful meal of risotto, crayfish (from one of the property's dams) wrapped in banana leaves, and chocolate souffle--plus lots of Italian bubbly to drink.) But by the next day, Chrysanne is no better. I cringe when she is lifted into the back seat of the plane the next morning. From the private airstrip in Nairobi where our small plane lands, our driver takes us to Nairobi Hospital, where they efficiently make the diagnosis, call in an orthopedic specialist, and prescribe the necessary medication.

Your mind takes you there at the strangest times . . .

You see something that pleases, and you think muzuri, which in Swahili means good, and which conjured up the U.S. state for a long time but which now seems a natural word--just as, over time, the stretched earlobes and scarred cheeks of the Maasai came to seem noble rather than ghastly.

And at sunset now--when you bother to take time to notice--you think of the magic of the green hills of Africa, of that family of giraffes you saw crossing the road the first evening you were there, of the pristine crater where not one piece of trash litters the ground, of the friendly, proud people you met, and the wonderful memories you'll cherish forever.

And you wonder about the world we have become and the world we still have to lose.

 I hope you've enjoyed my story and that it has transported you just a little to the magical world of East Africa. Please write with your comments to Karen Selsor at 103336.2751@compuserve.com.

 (Click TOP to return to the TOP: top)