Kids on Safari : Tame camping brings wildlife up close and personal on this family African adventure

ARUSHA, Tanzania — I never earned my camping badge in Girl Scouts. That doesn’t bother me. I’ve always hated camping anyway. Setting up . . . hiking to a toilet in the middle of the night . . . sleeping in bags on the ground. So when our travel agent proposed a camping option for a family safari to Tanzania last August, I was sure my family--in deference to me--wouldn’t accept. Wrong. They were smitten with the idea. “It’ll be an adventure,” they crooned. “Come on, mom, we just have to do it.” We don’t have to do it, I thought, but I knew I was outnumbered. And if you can’t beat ‘em . . .

Tanzania had been on our adventure travel list for years. So with our favorite travel companions--8-year-old son Will and 11-year-old daughter Alison--in mind, my husband, Bill, and I advanced it to the top of our list. After several days of calls to travel agents, we signed on with a company, Thomson Safaris, that specializes in Tanzania and met our goals of being family oriented and able to accommodate our budget of $16,000 to $18,000 for the trip.

They linked us with three other families who had a similar thirst for adventure (and whom we had never met), and suddenly our group numbered 14: seven children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, and seven aging baby boomers. For 12 days, we would share three four-wheel-drive safari vehicles, three drivers and one guide . . . as well as meals, binoculars, film, books, games, stories, chocolate, toothpaste and other necessities that 14 people can manage to stuff into their safari bags.

The 16-hour Northwest/KLM flight from Boston, with a plane change in Amsterdam, landed us at Kilimanjaro International Airport, in the shadow of Africa’s tallest mountain bearing the same name. From here, we were driven to our starting point of Arusha, Tanzania’s gateway town to its northern safari circuit and probably its busiest town after Dar es Salaam. Our itinerary would take us to three of northern Tanzania’s most striking and animal-rich game parks: Tarangire National Park, Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Although some of our accommodations were in game lodges, it was the camping that put us right in the heart of Africa.

Our first stop, Tarangire National Park, lay only 70 miles--but a four-hour drive--southwest of Arusha. The park is a dry-season retreat for herds of plains-grazing animals who drink from the snaking Tarangire River that runs the length of the park. Our tented accommodation, the Tarangire Safari Lodge, was a collection of 30 permanent tents lining a high, sharp bluff and overlooking the expansive dry savanna below.

Our family was assigned two tents, and the kids immediately claimed their own by throwing themselves onto the beds. A fleeting vision of camp cots collapsing under their weight dissipated--the sturdy wooden beds easily bore up. The tents also were outfitted with night tables, sisal floor covering, and a solar-heated shower and flush toilet in the back. And each tent’s cozy veranda offered unobstructed and dazzling views of the savanna, with its giant baobab and feathery acacia trees as well as its profuse, grazing wildlife: gazelles, giraffe, elephants, zebra and wildebeest. “We don’t even need to go in the vans to see the animals,” Will said. “We can just watch them from our tents!” But just as we pulled out binoculars to test his theory, we were called to dinner.

A varied and delicious buffet sent everyone hurrying to the long table set in the middle of the spacious dining room. After dessert, we had an unexpected treat: our guide, Willie Hombo’s, safari stories. Using his 20 years of guiding experience, he wove informative and enchanting stories of the wildlife and the local people, and gave us a privileged glimpse into his own life growing up in Tanzania.

The kids--armed with flashlights--ran off to a nearby tent to play cards and tell a few stories of their own by the dim light of the kerosene lamps. Later, as we adults made our way back to our tents, we heard our first unmistakable sounds of the African night--faint lion roars and hyena howls in the distance . . . and nearby, the joyful giggles of seven children.

The 6:30 wake-up call the next morning came all too early. But Hombo’s words the night before echoed: “If you want to see lions, we must leave by 7:30.” So after a hearty breakfast, we were off. Within a half hour--success! Three female lions and their cubs, partially hidden by the tall dry grass, sat feasting on a freshly killed wildebeest 20 feet from our vehicles. Undisturbed by our presence, they tore at the flesh with blood-smeared snouts and paws--the cubs almost disappearing into the carcass as they ate. Around the kill, other animals in the dining hierarchy waited: hyenas lurking in the tall grass and vultures circling above.

Hombo’s keen awareness of the wildlife forever astonished us. “He must have binoculars in his eyes,” one of the kids marveled. Indeed, the day’s yield included a lone leopard lazing in a sausage tree; a lion--belly to the ground--stalking two gazelles; and atop a waist-high, chimney shaped termite mound, a dozen pygmy mongooses, no bigger than chipmunks. We didn’t need Hombo’s eyes, however, to spot the 15 elephants lumbering in front of our vans, protectively encircling four calves.

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After another day of spectacular game viewing in Tarangire, we were off to our next stop: the Serengeti. Equal in size to Connecticut, the Serengeti is host to an estimated 3 million animals, most of whom migrate in a seasonal event unrivaled in nature. (Although our August visit missed the migration, the animals were not to disappoint.)

The six-hour, dusty, bumpy drive was interrupted midway by an unexpected blessing: a flat tire. As we climbed out of our vans to inspect, two teenage Masai girls ran toward us. The Masai are perhaps the most visible of Tanzania’s 129 recognized tribes. The girls, swathed in bright red cloths called rubekas, had closely shaven heads. Elaborate beaded earrings dangled almost to their shoulders from their elongated earlobes, while more earrings hung from large holes on the tops of their ears. Coiled gold bracelets snaked up their thin arms and legs and, for added beauty, on their cheeks were etched circular scars. The girls motioned to our cameras, then posed. Our group’s intrepid photographer--the 5-year-old--not missing a beat, pulled out her Polaroid, snapped, and gave the pictures to the girls, who viewed, in silence and rapture, the magical unfolding of their own images. Before leaving, the girls again pointed to our cameras and pulled our children over to stand with them. This time we adults didn’t miss a beat and snapped away at this priceless photo op.

A one-night stay at Kirurumu Tented Lodge, a permanent tented accommodation overlooking Lake Manyara, provided needed respite from the day’s drive, a superb dinner and great views of the lake’s most colorful residents: thousands of flamingos, which formed a shimmering pink edge around the shore. The next morning, after breakfast at the Kirurumu, we drove the final few hours to our private campsite in the Serengeti’s Seronera Valley. Our camp had been set up the night before by a crew of six (who had passed us in a cloud of dust the day before as we repaired our flat tire).

Set snugly between two rocky outcroppings, the camp consisted of 14 tents--primitive by previously set standards of the permanent tented accommodations. There were seven boxy green tents for sleeping, a long narrow rectangular tent for dining, and behind them all, six small blue tents resembling beach cabanas, of which three were for showering and three for toilets. This time the kids did not claim their own tent, nor--thankfully--did they throw themselves onto the collapsible cots. “This is real camping,” Will said.

The meals throughout our two-day camp stay here were simple, yet hearty and tasty. Bottled water and drinks were entirely safe.

Hombo had warned us that although proximity to the animals was one of the joys of camping, it also could be one of the hazards. “Don’t be surprised,” he cautioned, “if you hear rustling outside your tent. Civets, hyenas and other guests occasionally wander in. And lions have been known to visit. So zip your tents.” We obediently complied. And before long, the sounds of the night creatures filtered in--distant lion roars, hyena howls and wildebeest grunts. Never in the game lodge did we experience the intimacy with the animals that we did while camping in the bush.

“This is kinda scary,” my roommate Will said, “but it’s also really neat.”

The final stop on our safari circuit was the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The final campsite--on the 7,000-foot-high rim of the Ngorongoro Crater--once again was set up by the crew. The cold night temperature brought a new twist to the camping routine: The crew distributed hot-water bottles to warm beds and bodies in the nearly 40-degree weather.

The morning brought an early game drive down the crater’s escarpment and onto its floor, the sunken cone of the Ngorongoro Volcano and the world’s largest intact caldera. Sometimes called “paradise on Earth” and “the eighth wonder of the world,” the Ngorongoro Crater is home to more than 25,000 large mammals--all in an area that is only 11 miles in diameter. Because of the relatively small size of the crater, the wildlife feels close and dense, a virtual Noah’s Ark (sans giraffe). Dotting the view, near and far, were thousands of animals--zebras, wildebeests, cape buffalo, gazelles, eland and hartebeests--grazing, roaming and frolicking. The vans frequently slowed to inch their way through, parting the masses of animals. But as we stopped to watch a herd of zebras envelope and pass our vans, we saw across the plain something that parted the herds even more effectively and efficiently--the hyena. More than 400 of these ruthless, spotted predators live on the crater’s floor, and the grazing wildlife takes them very seriously.

The crater itself is a microcosm of African wildlife. Open plains, grasslands, rolling hills, marshes, swamps, soda lakes, streams and forests support a vast and varied array of animals and plant life. The find of the day was seeing three of the crater’s 20 rhinos in one grouping. Climbing out on top of the van’s roof, we saw the male rhino mark his territory with a spray that had the force of a fire hose. Two days of game drives persuaded us that yet another label is entirely fitting for Ngorongoro Crater: “The Garden of Eden.”

Our last night in Africa went all too quickly, as this entire trip had. We drove back to Kilimanjaro Airport in satisfied silence--the kind you have when you’ve just experienced something magical and indescribable. “Can we come back someday?” Will asked.

“We’ll try,” I said. “And let’s camp again when we do.”

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GUIDEBOOK

Camp Africa

Getting there: If you arrange your own air travel, best routing is on KLM or Northwest nonstop to Amsterdam, connecting to KLM to Kilimanjaro International Airport, Tanzania. Or fly United with one stop to Amsterdam, connecting to KLM; round-trip fares begin at about $4,085 including tax.

Safari companies: The following companies arrange family safaris on Tanzania’s northern safari circuit:

Ker & Downey (private family camping safaris), 2825 Wilcrest Drive, Suite 600, Houston, TX 77042; tel. (800) 423-4236. 10-day safari (based on a group of eight): $6,350 adult, $5,450 child 12-16, $5,200 child under 12, includes air from Los Angeles and land arrangements.

Thomson Safaris (specializes in Tanzania), 347 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139; tel. (800) 235-0289. 12-day adventure: $4,890 adult, $4,390 child 11 and under, includes air from Los Angeles and land arrangements.

Wildlife Safari (customized family safaris), 346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 107, Moraga, CA 94556; tel. (800) 221-8118. 13-day safari: $5,245 adult, children discounted 25%, includes air and land arrangements.

Basics: Visas are required for American citizens. For information on immunization requirements, contact the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga.; tel. (800) 237-3270.

For more information: Tanzania Embassy, Attn.: Mrs. Nyange, Information Officer, 2139 R St. NW, Washington, DC 20008; tel. (202) 939-6125, fax (202) 797-7408.