http://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk October 2019 | HARPER’S BAZAAR | 307PHOTOGRAPHS: ALEXANDRA PEREIRA (WWW.LOVELY-PEPA.COM), ELSA YOUNG, STOCKSY
animals into vivid focus. That evening was a taste of the days to
come, with a leopard sitting regally in the cleft of a tree, lions
muzzle-deep in a zebra flank, jackals and hyenas and giraffes
everywhere. At Mwiba, we saw the most wonderful array of wild-
life, among which, most excitingly for me, were two caracals:
d i m i n u t i v e , e l u s i v e , b a t - e a r e d c a t s t h a t s c u r r i e d a h e a d o f u s o n t h e
road and then darted for cover.
Alex Walker is an African institution: a legend in the world of
game guiding, he runs a series of mobile camps across Tanzania
a n d K e n y a. H u g e l y a f f a b l e , b e a r d e d , g i v i n g a n i m p r e s s i o n o f g r e a t ,
quiet strength, he’s the sort of man you’d want beside you in the
trenches. Julian told me that he’d spoken to Walker about our
(frankly unreasonable) demands, and they were met, they were
exceeded, they were blown from the water.
The week we spent with Walker at his two
camps – one in the southern Serengeti, one at
Kusini, further north – were truly memo-
rable, unique and (this is no exaggeration)
life-changing.
Here’s an example that was indicative of
the experience as a whole. Within a few
hours of arriving at Walker’s camp – proper
tents, but with comfortable beds, and each of
them with a view to die for – we were out in
the Jeep, driven by a dreadlocked Maasai
called Benny. The afternoon was fading into evening as we roared
out onto the plain, with storms on either side of us – a great billowing
mass of cloud over Lake Victoria to the west, lightning forking over
the Ngorongoro to the east. And then, there they were, as if Walker
had summoned them just for us: a pack of painted wolves lolling
beneath a tree. They were astonishingly charismatic, snapping and
yapping at one another, before they set off across the grass in search
of prey. We followed them for a while, and then the light fell further,
and we drove home with thunder rumbling, the sky lit up every few
seconds from one side, then the other.
We were plunged deep into the wildebeest migration – at Kusini
one of their main routes went straight past our tent, and we fell asleep
to the mumbled grunting of the herds, the eerie alien calls of hyenas
further off. It’s impossible to describe the sheer numbers of the
wildebeest, the sense of a stream of life flowing endlessly along. We
saw two male lions perched on a rocky kopje, shaking their manes,
lazily eyeing the teeming horde, and spent a morning following a
mother leopard and her two cubs as they slunk through the wooded
scrubland. I could go on: every day brought some fresh marvel, every
moment a new appreciation of the astonishing diversity and rich-
ness of t his glor ious la ndscape.
We had one night fly-camping, pitching tents in a glade where
the kids had archery lessons, and then, as the sun set, we were led to
a secluded spot where a copper bath had been filled with warm
water, and a cocktail cabinet set up, and the nightjars called from the
trees about us. The next morning, we went for a walk through
the bush with Walker and his guides, and didn’t see any animals
beyond the occasional impala or warthog; but to be with someone
who knows the land like Walker does is an education in itself, so
that every termite mound, every hoof-print in river mud, every tuft
of f u r caught on a n acac ia t hor n, spoke of t he in finite complex it y of
this vibrant ecosystem.
It must always have been a challenge for Julian to find anexperience to follow Alex Walker, but he
did. If Walker is about one kind of authen-
ticity, then Singita, in the north of Tanzania,
is another kind. This is a story of wealth
and power harnessed to deliver unequi-
vocal good. Paul Tudor Jones, the charismatic
US hedge-fund manager, bought a huge
swathe of north-western Tanzania in the
early years of this century. He recognised
that there was a lacuna between the great
reserve of the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara in the north, and
that a protected corridor was needed for game to move between
the two. What he has achieved is something exceptional: where
once there was rampant poaching, there is now a rich congregation
of lions, giraffes, elephants and leopards. A range of spectacular
lodges are nestled across the reserve; Oprah owns a house there.
This is also a project that has engaged enthusiastically with the
local population: those who once poached are now gamekeepers,
those who previously scraped a living are now building careers as
chefs, gardeners, waiters and guides.
We stayed in Paul Tudor Jones’ personal lodge – Serengeti House- whose recent inhabitants included the Obamas and the Beckhams.
It’s a breathtaking place, overlooking a drinking hole where, on our
last night, elephants came to snort and splash. Our guide, Bernard,
took us to see new-born lion cubs, baby elephants and hippos wal-
lowing in a lake. Then we came home to our butler, Ngolo, who
brought us exquisite food made by Gertrude, our cook, and drinks he
m i x e d f r o m o u r l o n g b a r. T h i s i s h i g h l u x u r y, b u t l u x u r y t h a t i s e t h i c a l ,
part of the greater good. The Singita project isn’t some half-hearted
nod towards sustainability, it is the future of tourism, that recognises
the visitor’s role in shaping the future of the country he or she visits.
I realised, when we returned, that Julian and Yellow Zebra had
created an unsurpassable experience of Africa for us. Because
once you’ve tasted perfection, it’s hard to make do with the merely
excellent. We are living in an age in which people are prepared to
pay the highest prices for authenticity, for stepping outside the
tourist trail. A proper safari is by its very nature a once-in-a-lifetime
experience; our trip contained within it a lifetime’s worth of memo-
ries and joy. A safari, if you do it at all, is worth doing right.
Yellow Zebra Safaris (020 8547 2305; http://www.yellowzebrasafaris.com),,)
from about £8,350 a person a week, not including flights. Singita’s proper-
ties can be included at a supplement of from £1,400 a person a night; and
Singita Serengeti House, from £7,184 a night (sleeps four).