What could be better than leaving office life behind and heading out into the bush for a safari recce in the company of one of the best safari guides? Better still, heading out with two of the best safari guides and a great walking scout.
I found myself on an early road departure out of Arusha with Chediel, Richard and scout Poly, having jumped on board their safari trip to recce a new area: Kusini in the southern Serengeti and Nomad's new camp there: Kusini Serengeti. The boys planned to walk the kopjes and woodlands around the new base camp, exploring the intricate and fascinating network of huge granite boulders that scatter this less-travelled area of the park. Their plan was to go looking for walking trails, fly-camp spots and just do what safari guides do.
Tucked in quietly - and gently – in and around the rocks, the main camp looks out over the surrounding woodlands with kopje after kopje spreading away in the distance. It’s the perfect spot from which to set forth, which we did after much discussion about how each kopje had to be climbed, as “you never know what you’ll see from the next one so you just have to keep on going, and going”. The southern Serengeti feels so different, wide skies, kopjes scattered like giant castles and that sense that you’re going off into a whole new adventure.
We started here, fortified by a strong cup of coffee and an oily but satisfying mandazi (a sweet fried pastry). Trying to travel light, and wanting to keep up, camera gear was kept to a minimum, which is no easy feat. I followed them down over the smooth rock surfaces, marvelling at the different colours of the lichen that grows on the surfaces; a symbiotic relationship, I was told, that causes this physical and chemical weathering. Note to self: always travel with safari guides, they always have something interesting to tell you!
We kept eyes and ears open for any game - elephants, buffalo and cats are often seen around the kopjes as well as gently striding giraffe - and our feet soon settled into the pace of a good walk. From this perspective, you just see and feel so much more. Richard pointed out leopard tracks on our path. I think we must have just missed him! The call of the Go-away-bird (once called the grey lourie) followed us along with White-browed coucals who crashed around in the bushes alongside. Our quiet footsteps and hushed voices made it seem like we were unobtrusive, and the animals and birds were just doing their thing, not so aware of our presence; that was a good feeling.
Back up on the rocks again, as of course all those kopjes had to be ‘conquered’ one by one, the wind picked up and we had to shout to be heard. Another cup of coffee was had in a lower area tucked in out of the wind, and here I saw strange round holes in the rocks, apparently made over the millennia by the flow of water. The lower ones, Chedi said, are where you can sometimes see elephants coming to drink during the rains. We saw large piles of elephant poo, but they had been there for some time.
That evening, we went up to the top of the camp kopje and sat out under an almost-full moon. Torches were switched off and eyes adjusted to the silvery light. I lay on my back and the rock was warm to the touch. I could have fallen asleep up there so easily had the boys not reminded me that a lion might pad this way come early light.
Nomad has always been drawn to these forgotten corners. From the earliest days, when a handful of pioneers built camps in far-flung places, we've always danced around the edges in our desire to stay as close to the wild as possible.
Kusini Serengeti is the latest chapter in that story, a return to a way of being that has always defined Nomad: light-footed, small-scale, and rooted in the wilderness itself.
