Bush & Beach Chic

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Issue 32

Bush tracks, or ocean breezes? Elephants, zebras and wild dogs, or pods of dolphins and shoals of irridescent fish? Sundowners under a sacred mountain, or cocktails in a softly swinging hammock? Finding it impossible to choose? In Kenya and Tanzania, you don’t have to. On a bespoke bush-and-beach safari, you really can get the best of both worlds, says Brian Jackman. East Africa is where I fell under the spell of this huge dusty continent. It was an instant love affair, consummated by the sight and sound of my first lion, a full-grown male with a shaggy mane, roaring on an anthill in the Masai Mara. Maybe that is what draws me back again and again, to see red-robed Masai herdsmen striding across the Saleh plains in the shadow of Ol Donyo Lengai, their sacred mountain. To watch the bull elephants of Ngorongoro, some of the biggest tuskers left on earth, feeding on the crater floor among the yellow fever trees of the Lerai Forest. To camp out in the vastness of the Serengeti; to hear the zebras calling as the migration passes by; or listen to the doves as the sun comes up over Amboseli. Or watch the ngalawas – the fishing boats of the East African coast – setting out into the boundless distance of the Indian Ocean. And that is another bonus that puts East Africa in a league of its own when it comes to safaris. It is not just the extraordinary diversity of habitats on offer, from the montane moorlands of the Aberdares to the miombo woodlands of southern Tanzania. It is not even the unifying sound of Swahili voices – to my ears the most beautiful language on earth. It is the shimmering presence of the Swahili coast; the coral reefs and coconut palms, the bone-white beaches and the deep blue waters where the billfish run. From end to end, from Kiwayu down to the Mafia archipelago, East Africa’s Indian Ocean coast is the perfect place to relax after a sojourn in the bush and, until Mozambique really takes off, its primacy remains unchallenged. In the old days, if ever I found myself on the coast, I used to fret, wishing I were back on the plains with the lions and the wildebeest. But increasingly, as the years have passed and Africa has pioneered the hugely successful concept of barefoot luxury beach lodges, I have found myself hooked by the Coral Coast and its monsoon breezes. A Swahili proverb, ‘Taratibu ndio mwendo’, which might be translated as ‘Slowly does it’, sums up the laid-back coastal lifestyle; and when it comes to seafood – lobsters, mangrove crabs, grilled snapper drenched in lime juice as served up at Peponi’s, on Lamu, – you’ll never eat better. So how best to divide your time in East Africa? The mix-and-match permutations are endless; but here, to make life easier, are six bush-and-beach safaris to blow your mind. To subscribe or buy this edition, click here Meru and Manda Meru National Park in northern Kenya will forever be associated with George and Joy Adamson and Elsa the lioness whose story, Born Free, became an African classic. Here in the shadow of the Nyambeni mountains, on the lion-coloured plains and among the combretum thickets and granite kopjes, is where Elsa was raised and returned to the wild. Today, many of Meru’s wild lions are the descendants of George’s original pride, and the red rocky hilltop where the old man once sat with his lions and his nightly sundowner is now the site of one of Kenya’s finest lodges. From Elsa’s Kopje, with its luxury cottages and infinity swimming pool, you can look out across the immense emptiness of the old Northern Frontier District towards George’s old camp at Kora. “Nowhere else in Africa,” says Stephano Cheli, who built Elsa’s Kopje lodge, “is half as wild and beautiful and remote as Meru.” Under Mark Jenkins, Meru’s resolute park warden, the numbers of elephant and other game have been steadily increasing since the poaching years of the ’70s and ’80s. And, unlike the old days, you can now fly there direct from Nairobi in under an hour. Manda Bay, which is also marketed by Stephano Cheli, is equally accessible by air. It has its own airstrip and you could fly there direct from Elsa’s Kopje by private charter, or return to Nairobi and take the Air Kenya daily schedule flight from Wilson airport. Manda Bay is Kenya’s newest barefoot luxury beach lodge. As its name suggests, it is set at the northwestern tip of Manda Island in the Lamu archipelago. Here, under the palms, are 10 airy cottages, each with ensuite bathrooms and shady verandahs looking out over shimmering sands and tidal channels. Like all good lodges, Manda Bay is owner-run, with Caragh and Andy Roberts on hand to meet and greet and introduce you to the activities on offer. The best time to come is from the end of November when the Kaskasi Trade Wind begins to blow from the northeast, bringing dolphins to the bay and migrating flocks of carmine bee-eaters. Activities on offer include fishing, snorkelling and sundowners onboard Utamaduni, a 60ft traditional sailing dhow. Laikipia and Alfajiri The Laikipia Plateau stretches from the Great Rift Valley to the slopes of Mount Kenya, and is bigger than all of the country’s game reserves except Tsavo. Although divided into a mosaic of tribal grazing lands and private, eco-friendly cattle ranches, Laikipia is unique because, unlike elsewhere in Kenya, wildlife numbers have been increasing. Laikipia’s elephants, more than 2,000-strong, represent the largest population anywhere outside the parks. Scattered across the plateau are a string of superb private lodges. They range from Sabuk on the Ewaso Nyiro River, where you can go camel trekking with Laikipiak Masai warrior guides, to Borana, a 35,000-acre ranch offering game walks, night drives, horseriding and a swimming pool. I would love to go back to the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, set in a quintessential East African landscape of golden grass and flat-topped thorn trees. Here the choice lies between the eight guest cottages at Lewa Wilderness Trails; Lewa House, which sleeps six; or Lewa Safari Camp with tents and rooms overlooking a waterhole frequented by rare black rhino. Alfajiri, whose Swahili name means ‘Sunrise’, is the stuff of dreams: a wildly exotic three-storey pavilion with an infinity pool perched on low coralline cliffs above the ten-mile sweep of Diani Beach. The owners are a glamorous Italian couple, Fabrizio and Marika Molinaro, and should you choose the topmost suite you can boast that you’ve slept in a bedroom voted as one of the five most beautiful in the world. The food, as you might imagine, is a perfect fusion of Italy and the Indian Ocean: crayfish delivered direct from the reef and Parma ham flown in weekly from Europe. Fourteen staff are on hand to look after you, including a 24-hour butler service and a nanny if you bring the children. In other words, Alfajiri offers all the facilities of a five-star hotel, but in your own private villa. Masai Mara and Kiwayu The Masai Mara National Reserve is probably the best place in the world to spend time up close among the big cats. Here you’ll find leopards that obligingly pose in riverine fig trees, and cheetahs that may, if you are lucky, leap on to the bonnet of your safari Land Cruiser. As for lions, nobody goes away disappointed. No matter where you stay, at Governors’ Camp on the Mara River or at Serena Lodge in the Mara Triangle, you’ll here them roaring every night and set out to look for them each morning in the rolling seas of oat grass, or maybe even spot them from the sky on a balloon safari. No wonder the BBC chose to film Big Cat Diary in the Mara. The best time to come is from July onwards, when the wildebeest and zebra herds migrate north from the Serengeti. To watch them storming across the Mara River is one of nature’s greatest spectacles, but is not for the squeamish. The Mara is their dry season refuge, and here the migration remains until October, when the short rains draw them south again. Where to stay? Cottars and Little Governors’ are hard to beat. So is Rekero, on the Talek River. But for seclusion, comfort and sheer value for money, try Kicheche Mara Camp. Kiwayu is about as remote as you can get on the Kenyan coast. It lies on the shores of the Kiunga Marine National Reserve, only 30 miles from the Somali border, in a luminous archipelago of palm-fringed horizons. Its pristine waters are home to pelicans, turtles, dugongs and whale sharks, and although you can fly in direct from Nairobi, the local fishermen still live in the age of sail as they steer their dhows through the mangrove channels. Thirty years ago, when elephants still wandered along the beach, there was nothing here but a hunting camp. When hunting was banned in 1977 Kiwayu became a beachcomber’s hideaway, with driftwood furniture and scatter cushions covered in hot African colours. So began the whole concept of barefoot luxury. Today, lovingly fine-tuned over the years, Kiwayu is still setting the pace with its 18 spacious Bajuni-style cottages spread around the shores of a sheltered lagoon. Apart from a handful of Bajuni fishermen, the beach belongs just to you and the ghost crabs. And if you really want to be alone you should check into the Baobabs of Kitangani, a lovers’ refuge built for two on the far side of the lagoon. Tsavo East and Watamu Tsavo is East Africa’s biggest national park, and home to a third of the country’s elephants. It is so big that it has always been administered as two separate parks, Tsavo East and Tsavo West. Think of a wilderness the size of Wales and you’ll get some idea of its epic scale. Of the two, Tsavo East is by far the wildest, its seas of thornbush and red dusty game trails prone to fierce droughts. Yet there is beauty, too, in the outlines of the blue faraway hills and in the riverine woodlands of the Galana River. Here, just upstream from Lugard’s Falls, is a perfectly eco-friendly bushcamp, a riverside oasis of utter tranquillity called Galdessa, with eight thatched bandas under the doum palms. This is the place to stay if you want to catch the pulse of untamed Africa. Black rhino still hide in the deepest thickets and, although you may have to work harder to find big cats, the Tsavo lions are the real thing, descendants of the notorious man-eaters that terrorised the area in the 1890s. Watamu and its Marine National Park is the setting for Hemingways, a luxurious beach hotel with an unrivalled reputation among the game fishing fraternity. November to March is the time to come if you wish to pit your strength against the giant billfish that lured Ernest Hemingway to Watamu in 1954. This is also the best season for snorkelling and scuba diving in the marine park, as the Kenyan coast can be affected by strong winds and seaweed between April and October. To snorkel or cruise by glass-bottomed boat across the coral gardens is to discover a crystal world of underwater life, from turtles and groupers to shoals of brilliant-coloured reef fish. Mida Creek at the southern end of the park is where bird-watchers go to look for ospreys and crab plovers among the sand-spits and mangrove shores. Selous and Ras Kutani The Selous is Africa’s biggest wildlife stronghold, a game reserve the size of Ireland with not so much as an inch of tarmac and no settlement of any kind except for a handful of camps and lodges. To get there you fly by bush plane from Dar es Salaam until you are deep in the endless miombo, the dry and autumn-coloured deciduous woodlands that run south for a thousand miles. Within this vast refuge live at least 60,000 elephants, 40,000 hippos, 110,000 buffaloes and 4,000 lions, not to mention untold numbers of leopards, antelopes and several packs of wild dogs. Come in June or July if you can, before the Selous becomes too hot, especially if you plan to go on one of the walking and fly-camping safaris for which the reserve is famous. The best walks are from Sand Rivers, a luxury lodge with a gorgeous pool overlooking a sunset-facing bend of the mighty Rufiji River. Boat trips on the Rufiji are a must – so don’t miss the chance of a picnic breakfast upstream at Steigler’s Gorge. Or stay at the Selous Safari Camp, as Prince Charles did with William and Harry in 1997. The setting, overlooking Lake Nzerakera, is stunning, with borassus palms soaring from the water and lions and elephants coming to drink. Ras Kutani is a romantic hideaway in the best traditions of Africa’s barefoot luxury beach lodges. Sheltered from the rest of the world by a pristine forest alive with monkeys and tropical butterflies, it lies just south of Dar es Salaam, and guests flying in to its private airstrip are met and conveyed by rowing boat across a lily-covered lagoon. Under the palms are eight thatched cottages, each one the size of a modest tithe barn, with paths leading down to a mile-long, sugar-soft, hassle-free beach. Beside your bed you’ll find a beach bag containing a straw hat and a choice of cotton kikois. These, plus sun block and swimwear, are all you need at Ras Kutani. If you are hoping to find good snorkelling and scuba diving you will be better off elsewhere – maybe at Pole Pole Resort in the Mafia archipelago. Instead, what Ras Kutani uniquely offers is terrific boogie-boarding when the surf is up. Serengeti and Mnemba The Serengeti is probably the world’s most famous national park. Renowned for its large prides of lions, its endless savannahs and herds of plains game, Africa doesn’t get any better than this. Most visitors are eager to see the migration – the greatest wildlife show on earth – when a million wildebeest and zebras in their tens of thousands follow the rains from season to season through the year. So timing is crucial. In May, having spent the green months of the year on their calving grounds in the south of the park, the herds move north and west through the Seronera Valley and the Western Corridor, heading towards the Masai Mara where they arrive in July and remain until October before moving back through the northern woodlands. In all these areas you will find excellent camps and lodges such as Grumeti River Camp in the Corridor and Klein’s Camp in the Kuka Hills. But the Serengeti of everyone’s dreams lies among the lonely granite kopjes on the short grass plains between Ndutu and the Gol Mountains, where the wildebeest calving season peaks in February. See it all from Ndutu Lodge; or better still, join the migration on a mobile camping safari from Ndutu to the Gol Mountains or the remoteness of Loliondo. Mnemba is the ultimate in barefoot luxury beach lodges, and after a mobile camping safari in the wilds of the Serengeti there is nowhere better for total relaxation than this private coral atoll off the northern tip of Zanzibar. It’s one of CC Africa’s flagship properties where, despite the sumptuous food, the candle-lit dinners on the beach and the comfort of your king-size bed, barefoot-casual is the dress code. The atoll itself is so small you could stroll around it in twenty minutes; but is encircled by ten miles of reefs, and at low tide it becomes a beachcomber’s paradise of seashells, white sand and warm pools. The surrounding waters teem with reef fish. Dolphins and whale sharks are regular visitors, and at night green turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. A few days here and you’ll find it hard to tear yourself away.

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