SURF AND TURF SAFARI
Fancy seeing lions AND swimming round a reef? Then, says Julia Llewellyn Smith, it’s time to try a ...
IHAVE a confession: my name is Julia and I’m a safari addict. To me, nothing beats the thrill of spotting a herd of elephant swaying across the horizon, or seeing a cheetah sunbathing.
But like most addictions, mine is expensive. Budget airlines don’t fly to the African bush and hotels located miles from civilisation aren’t cheap.
Safaris aren’t only pricey, they’re exhausting. To stand a chance of spotting the animals, you have to rise at dawn and spend hours bumping along dusty roads in a 4x4. After a few days I’m yearning for a lie-in and a sunlounger, not to mention a dose of one of my other favourite activities – snorkelling. But safari plus a beach break inevitably means more travelling – and expense.
So the Saadani Safari Lodge sounded like the dream combination. Set in Saadani National Park in northern Tanzania, this hotel’s front ‘yard’ is the gentle Indian Ocean, its back ‘garden’ the game-filled African bush.
‘Sometimes we see elephants playing in the surf. And look out for lion footprints in the sand outside your room,’ enthused manager Candy as she showed me to my beachfront suite, complete with deep leather armchairs and indoor and outdoor showers.
My smile vanished. I’m all for close encounters with wildlife – I just don’t want them to surprise me while I’m sunbathing.
Candy explained that this was unlikely. ‘Lions are far more scared of us than we are of them. Anyway,’ she continued, noting my unconvinced expression, ‘we have armed guards to escort you to your room at night.’
Reaching Saadani takes some effort – an overnight flight from London to Nairobi, a transfer to Dar es Salaam, followed by a 30-minute flight in a hopper plane.
Saadani became a national park eight years ago. Before this, poaching was rife, meaning that although the park contains four of the famed Big Five (lion, elephant, buffalo and leopard – only rhinos are missing), the animals are still far more elusive than in East Africa’s better known reserves.
After lunch, we piled into a vehicle for our first game drive through the bush. ‘You’re having an African massage,’ joked our guide Issack as we hit yet another pothole. Within minutes we’d spotted baboons, wart- hogs, giraffe and zebra. After about an hour, we drew up beneath an acacia tree in which were perched four lionesses – sisters, according to Issack. Two were enjoying a siesta. The others were standing on a narrow branch, yellow eyes scanning the horizon for possible dinner options – not us, luckily, since lions don’t understand that a vehicle may contain passengers, Issack reassured us.
In the better-known parks, such a sight would have attracted hordes of camera-clicking tourists. But here we could observe them in solitude.
The following morning (my birthday) we were on sea safari. A boat moored virtually outside my room and then carried us to a tiny sandbank accessible only at low tide. After snorkelling on the nearby reef, we emerged to find the crew had been busy laying out a lavish picnic.
As we ate fresh prawns and drank Moët, the tide crept up. By the time we’d finished, we were marooned on a sliver of sand and had to make a dash for the boat.
Less than hour after leaving the ‘surf’, it was time for ‘turf’ again, as we watched five muddy lion cubs stripping the bones bare from the corpse of an unlucky buffalo. An adult lion, who’d had first dibs at the feast, was snoozing in the shade. Suddenly, he jumped up and nudged the cubs out of the way, nibbled at the carcass once more, then returned to his resting place.
Four lionesses, who’d been second to tuck in, sat licking their paws. When we turned, we saw giraffes, warthogs, impala and hartebeest heading to a nearby waterhole. ‘They know the lions aren’t hungry, so they can walk past them without fear,’ said Issack.
Half an hour later, I was on the
beach again, this time in a deckchair enjoying my favourite safari ritual: a vodka and tonic ‘sundowner’. As happens in the tropics, darkness fell in seconds. When I turned east, the lights of Zanzibar’s Stone Town twinkled on the horizon.
THE peace was interrupted by cries of ‘happy birthday’ as five of the Lodge’s cheery staff shimmied on to the sands, hips swaying and singing a Swahili birthday song, which apparently translated as: ‘We love you so much.’ Very flattering, though I could have done without the bit where they repeatedly shouted: ‘How old are you?’
That evening, we feasted on fresh crab, caught that morning by the fishermen whom we’d seen earlier waist-deep in the ocean.
Fresh seafood is another thing that makes Saadani different from other safari lodges, which – because of their remote inland locations – usually serve just beef or chicken.
Most safari lodges also have brutal regimes of dawn game drives, followed by long siestas and then an evening drive. But because Saadani offers so many activities, the timetable’s more relaxed. During my three-day stay, I rose when I fancied and spent the morning sunbathing or taking a dip in the stunning infinity pool.
Saadani’s all-inclusive price includes one motorised activity per day, so you can choose either a morning or evening game drive, a sea safari or a river safari – though for that experience I’d recommend decamping to the Lodge’s sister hotel, River Lodge.
An hour’s drive away, deep in mangrove forest, River Lodge feels very Heart Of Darkness, although the decor’s straight out of Vogue. Arriving at night, we couldn’t see the wide River Wami directly below our suite’s vast terrace, but we could hear its hippos foghorning through the night.
The following morning, we not only heard the hippos, but saw them up close (not to mention crocodiles). Some hippos were pottering on the muddy banks. Others’ ears peeked out of the muddy water like enemy periscopes. A couple ducked below the surface, then emerged blowing water high into the air. ‘Don’t be fooled,’ said our guide. ‘Hippos are the most dangerous animals in Africa. They kill far more people than lions do.’
‘Are they more frightened of us than we are of them?’ I asked. ‘No, they have no fear.’ The words came back to haunt us the next morning when we had to leave the Lodge by river (overnight rain had made the road impassable). The tide was so low that our boat stuck in the sand and it took 18 men to push us off.
Chugging slowly towards the open sea, there was an apprehensive silence as bloats (the apt collective noun) of hippos stared at us from the exposed sandbanks. It was a relief to make it to the river mouth and then return to Safari Lodge.
On the bumpy flight back to Dar es Salaam, I reflected that after this close encounter, I’d be almost blasé about spotting lions on the beach. Sadly, it wasn’t to be – but a month or so later, Candy sent me photos of a group of lionesses and their cubs playing on the sand that morning.
I’m guessing they scarpered when the fishermen appeared – after all, they’re more frightened of us than we are of them. Right?