Destination: Kenya : Where the Wildebeests Are : At a Masai Mara safari camp, the storied land of wildlife lives on

When Westerners talk about Africa a question arises: How long do you think it will last?

By that is meant not how long will the continent last, or its troubles. But how many years can we put off going if we want to see the storybook Africa of wild animals, epic spaces and game safaris?

How long until it’s too dangerous to go? Or until the animals are overwhelmed by human population growth, mismanagement, greed, poaching, political strife?

To these questions, I cannot venture a guess. Except to observe that today at places like Kenya’s Masai Mara, the huge game preserve just north of the Serengeti, Africans have preserved their great wildlife heritage as well--and in some regards a good deal better--than Americans have theirs. For, where in America can you travel just 45 minutes from a big city (in this case, Nairobi) and have a comfortable lunch with a million wild animals?

This is not the real Africa any more than Alaska’s national parks are the real America. And from my brief travels on the continent, my advice is that one should not necessarily begin here.

Better to plunge into the crowds in Nairobi, bounce over a few hundred kilometers of rural African roads, peer down a few army gun barrels at border checkpoints, sleep in a village or two, go dancing at a steaming all-night club, cover a refugee disaster, climb a mountain, pull a couple of weeks of satisfying volunteer work at a relief agency orphanage.

Then, weary, ask, as I did late last summer, where do you go to recharge? (I had been covering the Rwanda refugee crisis and had seen enough of that side of Africa.) Where does one find the storybook?

“Little Governor’s Camp,” suggested a Nairobi friend.

Knowing nothing else but the name, I went.

From Nairobi’s small-plane Wilson Airport, Air Kenya flies a well-tended twin-engine Otter to the Masai Mara preserve, south and west of Nairobi, a land of green-brown savannah, lonely trees, sharp escarpments and a two-mile-wide ribbon of dense forest encasing the Mara River. As for the Masai people, this is their traditional land. They still ranch cattle on the preserve, and their villages can be visited. (They will charge for a walking tour of their encampment.)

Safari camps are sprinkled throughout the region. Our flight route is determined by which passengers are going where this day.

Of 18 visitors, I am landed last. A green Land Rover waits off the runway. I walk over and introduce myself to a safari-vested driver, Jacob Ngunjiri, who will take me to the camp, and, in the next two days, guide me through the wonders of the storybook.

Did I mention the seven elephants grazing on the other side of the runway as we arrive?

We jounce down a dirt road a few miles, and wind our way into the riverbank forest. I leave the car and walk a foot trail down to the muddy, fast-moving Mara. I notice two hippos stationed downstream. And the lack of a bridge across. Instead, we take a skiff, which is pulled by rope to the other bank.

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Little Governor’s Camp--as opposed to nearby Big Governor’s or Governor’s Paradise Camp--is arranged at the edge of trees on a crescent of mowed grass: 17 double-bed tents, a thatched-roof bar, cooking pit and dinner tent. In front of the privately run camp is a 200-acre swamp, and beyond that more forest.

I walk up the concrete steps to my porch. There is patio furniture and a sprawl of tautly guyed green canvas that covers 200 square feet. I chuckle at my friend’s description of “tent camping.” With a solid foundation, mats and carpet floors, a wood dressing table, tiled bathroom with bidet and oversized shower, outside patio and lawn furniture--all I can say is it’s lucky no one has to pack up this tent and move it somewhere.

A soft 70-degree breeze blows through the netting windows. I hear munching. A troupe of wart hogs is down on its knees in front of my tent trimming the lawn. Large tusks, I notice, are useless at this task. I suspect I know what they are useful for.

Lunch is outdoors: creamed soup, cold cuts, salad, fruit, pasta and icy Tusker lager beer from Kenya. Nine elephants are grazing in the swamp. One of them scares up a hippo, which goes waddling and splashing into deeper water. A family of baboons emerges at the forest edge. A female wart hog with what I might describe as curvaceous tusks moves to my side and stands there like a Labrador retriever.

I lunch with a woman traveling from Boston with her 5-year-old son, who is sure to be spoiled for the rest of his life by this experience. A Vancouver, Canada, family joins us--the woman is a doctor and has been working for a month at a rural hospital. Some of the visitors seem interested in each other. I’m interested in solitude. You can have it either way.

At a rate that, excluding air fare but counting park fees and other incidentals, can start at $325 per night, it is expensive Africa. That rate, which is for one person, includes pick-up at the runway, expeditions into the preserve, and meals. Booze is extra, and not cheap. But the Kenya beer, Tusker, is frosty good and is a bargain at any price.

Here, I learn, safaris are composed of “game drives” in which six of us bounce along in Jacob’s Land Rover three times a day, in between eating and drinking, and gaze at countryside and wildlife, sunrise and sunset, steppe, plain and riverbank.

We watch lions play with their young and then hunt. Cheetahs pose. Hyenas run but do not laugh. Crocodiles sunbathe. Fifty-two elephants in one herd mow grass, except one of them no bigger than a suitcase who is not yet weaned. And hoofed animals practically crowd the place. They are in such profuse abundance that I stand in the open roof of the car with my binoculars and turn 360 degrees. Never for more than five degrees is the lens empty of zebra, wildebeest, topi, eland, giraffe, dik dik, impala, Cape buffalo, hartebeest, gazelle and probably a few I’ve forgotten.

And the birds--the big ones, like the ostrich; the odd ones, like the secretary bird, and the dazzling ones, such as the lilac-crested aurora.

Yes, I am aware that Africa’s wildlife is under tremendous stress from local population expansion and poaching. But here the illusion of a wild and vast Africa remains unspoiled for as far as my eye and imagination can wander.

As for safety, yes, yes, a tourist was raped and killed on a camping trip in the Masai in 1988. But Kenya residents say that safari camps are among the safest places in the country for tourists. Most of the troubles that beset visitors occur to those who insist on venturing alone and off the regular safari circuit. Among the many emotions one feels at this camp, danger is not apt to be among them.

At nightfall in Little Governor’s Camp, gas lanterns are lit by the small army of uniformed employees, all of them Kenyans and all of them quick to call out the Swahili greeting, “Jambo!” A man lights a bonfire near the dinner tent and the trace of chill disappears. Masai warriors in military dress patrol the grounds with shotguns. We dine inside a dinner tent, starting with sherry and soup, then good South African wine and fresh fish in a light cream sauce. Someone with a flashlight leads me back to my tent. The bed is small but soft, and the quilted blanket is comfortable for nesting.

Bush babies scream in the night. Baboons howl. An elephant trumpets.

The next thing I hear is a zipper. It is just before dawn, and a man is opening my tent to bring me a steaming pot of Kenyan coffee.

No, don’t light the lantern, I ask. I don’t want to miss those first lurid orange streaks of the Masai Mara sunrise, just like in the storybook.

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GUIDEBOOK

Wild Kenya

Getting there: From LAX, better connections to Nairobi are British Airways (through London), Air France (Paris) or Swissair (Zurich). Round-trip fares start at about $3,000, including taxes. From Nairobi’s Wilson Airport, Air Kenya flies to the Masai Mara twice daily, about $150 round trip.

Little Governor’s Camp: In 1995, rates will start at about $325 per person per night for the first two nights, about $290 per person per night thereafter. Rate generally includes three meals and three daily game drives; wine and alcohol extra.

It may be easiest to book through a U.S. tour operator such as: Travcoa, 2350 S.E. Bristol St., Newport Beach, CA. 92660; telephone (714) 476-2800 or (800) 992-2004. Or Travel Partners, 485 East 17th St., Suite 101, Costa Mesa, CA 92627; tel. (714) 631-5240 or (800) 255-3528.

When to go: July to October is peak visitor season, with July and August the most promising time to see the great wildebeest migration. November typically brings evening rain but is all-around quieter. December through February are the hottest months. April through June are the wettest.

For more information: Contact the Kenya Consulate, Tourist Office, 9150 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 160, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, tel. (310) 274-6635.