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For 20 years it was off limits to visitors; a cheetah hotspot exclusively set aside for scientific research until Asilia Africa was granted permission to set up a high-end safari camp in 2014. Since then, due to its off-grid location a good hour’s drive from any other camps, you can enjoy the rare privilege of spending all day in big cat country with no other vehicles around.
Surrounded by glades of flat-roofed acacias, the camp itself, with its 10 en-suite guest tents, is an oasis of comfort. It even has a swimming pool — a rare treat in the Serengeti — but its greatest luxury is the professionalism of its guides, whose knowledge and enthusiasm are second to none.
If you want to catch the great Serengeti migration, November is the month to choose. This is the season of the grass rains — warm days of sunshine and showers that bring the savannah back to life — when upwards of a million wildebeest, together with thousands of zebras, gazelles, and other plains game, are passing through on their way back from the Mara to their calving grounds in the south of the park. No wonder it is known as the greatest wildlife show on earth.
But apart from the long rains of April and May, any time can be just as rewarding. The migrating herds may have moved on, but the cheetahs are still there, and they are not the only attraction.
Leopards lurk in the fever tree forests, and the kopjes — those enigmatic granite outcrops that rise like islands from the seas of grass — are home to large prides of the famous Serengeti lions. And when at last you find them, having driven out at first light with a picnic breakfast on board, thanks to Namiri’s exclusive location you can have them all to yourself. asiliaafrica.com/camps-lodges/namiriplains
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THE ULTIMATE CRUISE . . .
IN ANTARCTICA
By Mike Unwin
A hush overtakes our party as our Zodiac driver cuts the engine. I gawp at the wonderland around us: the improbable ice sculptures — anvils, pagodas, elephants — that crowd the bay; the huge tabular bergs along the horizon and fissured glaciers beneath the towering peaks of the peninsula. It’s hard to process the immensity. Behind us, Scenic Eclipse awaits our return, her sleek lines perfectly framed through an ice Arc de Triomphe.
Wildlife brings focus. Crabeater seals yawn and wave languorous flippers while Chaplinesque adelie penguins break off preening to scrutinise our approach. As I raise my camera, an abrupt exhalation, like the hiss of hydraulic brakes, wrests our attention to the stern where the gleaming back of a humpback whale rises through the floating brash ice not 10 metres away. Antarctica is the greatest wilderness on Earth, and the ultimate destination for cruisers and adventurers alike. Nowhere else will you feel quite such a sense of puny irrelevance. Be warned: getting there means two days crossing the notorious Drake Passage from Argentina’s Ushuaia. But Scenic Eclipse, the very latest in expedition cruise comfort, takes these lively seas in its stride. And when you venture up on deck, tearing yourself away from the fine dining and excellent lectures, there are albatross outriders in your wake.
Every voyage is a new one. In Antarctica, the weather and ice dictate the itinerary. Working your way down the peninsula, you glide through picture-book panoramas without another vessel in sight. And at every opportunity, you disembark by Zodiac — either to cruise the ice edge in search of wildlife or to tramp the white continent underfoot and mingle with the penguins. Where conditions allow, you can even slip into a kayak and paddle past snoozing seals. Launched in 2019 as the world’s first “discovery yacht”, Scenic Eclipse also has other toys at your disposal. A helicopter flight reveals the full scale of this jaw-dropping landscape from the air, while a descent in the ship’s unique six-guest submarine takes you to the seabed — where icefish and krill appear outside your picture windows in a spot no human being will ever have seen before.
The Antarctic Peninsula, via Ushuaia, is the classic Antarctic cruise. But there are other options. You could sail via the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. You could head south to the
Weddell Sea, where Shackleton’s wreck was discovered earlier this year, in search of emperor penguins. Or east, via the Ross Ice Shelf and the huts of the first explorers. The longest expeditions are 33-day epics, though you’ll be more comfortable than the likes of Scott and Shackleton.
Cruises run during the Antarctic Summer (November-march), when the days are long, icefree seas allow access, and wildlife gathers in its breeding colonies. On Scenic Eclipse, all your needs are catered for. You needn’t bring much, except a mind prepared to be blown. Oh, and a pair of binoculars: those albatrosses don’t always spot themselves. scenicnz.com/cruises/antarctica
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THE ULTIMATE FOOD AND WINE HOLIDAY . . . IN SPAIN
By Chris Caldicott
Street food tours have become an increasingly trendy part of the travel experience. In India, stalls offer spicy selections of savoury snacks; in Vietnam you can slurp steaming bowls of pho soup and noodles on plastic stools in every back street. In Europe, however, finding authentic regional cuisine usually requires booking a restaurant table, removing a large degree of spontaneity. The exception is Spain, where tapas culture comes with the same casual street food style — with the added attraction of a cold cerveza or copa di vino, often from an underrated local vineyard.
I’ve sampled wonderful cuisine in every corner of the world, but a trip around the historic Moorish towns and “pueblos blancos” of Andalucia, punctuated with the delicious food and colourful snapshots of day-to-day life found in any neighbourhood tasca or tapas bar, is my ultimate culinary holiday.
Tapas can be as simple as a plate of Manchego cheese and olives, wafer-thin slices of cured smoky and spicy Iberico hams served on olive oil-soaked bread, a scoop of paella or deep-fried crunchy anchovies.
They can also be as complex as sizzling earthenware casseroles of stuffed squid,