Just a quick note to signpost Namiri Plains appearing in last month’s Conde Nast, an article by Anthony Sattin, whose experience-led description of what it means to go on safari couldn’t feel more real.
New and extremely-well designed, Namiri Plains is the only tented accommodation in a remote 200 square kilometre eastern bloc of the Serengeti. A typically treeless savannah habitat, marked by kopjes and mounds, the area’s known for its big cats.
What struck me when reading Sattin’s piece, was how quickly the experience of the camp, and in particular the expertise of the guiding, moved him from the ubiquitous hunger we all have for sighting a big cat kill to understanding, as he says, ‘that one of the greatest thrills of safari is not blood, but an appreciation of the complex interaction of animals.’
Left in the more than capable hand of Lewis Mangaba, Sattin’s was, dare I say it, a deeper and more measured experience of a wildlife habitat. Exclusive, remote, his game drives were exactly that: his game drives. There were no convoys, no tarmac roads, no minibuses forming disorderly semi-circles around a pride of feeding lions. Mangaba and Sattin had 200 square miles to themselves – and with it a wonderful slice of the real wild Africa.