Enjoying sunset with the locals beside
the waters of the Selinda Spillway.
Photo by Ginna Royce.
As Hemingway said,
“I never knew of a morning
that I woke up in Africa that
I was not happy.”
By noon, the sun had made it uncomfortable for both the
animals and the animal watchers. Our tent offered a retreat
worthy of kings. The canvas sides were secured to a front
entrance made from carved rustic wooden doors from Zanzibar.
These kept the monkeys out, who have learned the art of un-zip-
ping tent flaps. The floor was a polished dark brown teak
partially covered with an Indian tribal rug. The furnishings
were leather and canvas with shades of British Colonial décor,
right down to the four-poster canopy bed. The tent’s large,
copper bathtub was filled each night after dinner, bubbles
topped with rose petals and accompanied by a side of cham-
pagne. I needed the bath to relax during our second night after
encountering a male leopard crossing the path to our tent. He
barely gave us a sideward glance. The next day we were visited
by a giant bull elephant just outside our tent. I asked myself
why we were bothering to leave the camp to see the animals.
After four days in Zarafa, we boarded a bush plane for the
20-minute flight across the Delta to Duba Plains, another
Great Plains Conservation property. It was our second
visit in 12 months, and we were greeted by a familiar face,
Annette. She is a New Zealand transplant who, at the age of
16, hopped a German cargo container ship bound for New
At Duba Plains Camp, the bespoke tents are open to the
surrounding floodplain and a steady parade of wildlife.
Photo by Delbert Royce.
York. She eventually landed in Kenya and, now in her 50s,
manages safari camps.
With more than 200 game drives in our past, I was sure we
had encountered the best of the best when it came to safari
guides. I was wrong. Kups, a tall, slender African, began his
hospitality career in the camp’s vehicle maintenance shop.
Studying in his spare time, he transferred to guiding and is
now in charge of the guides at Duba Plains. To put it simply,
he is a brilliant tracker and photographer.
He introduced us to the channel that snakes around the camp,
accessible by a flat-bottom boat. There, elephants munched
the reeds and submerged their bodies in the water, six-foot-
wide lily pads dotted the surface, dragonflies hummed over
our heads, and curious hippos kept track of our every turn.
Our last day in the Delta was punctuated by a helicopter
tour—sans doors—that gave us a bird’s-eye view of the vast
flatlands and its inhabitants.
On this trip, we checked the box on our bucket list for India,
but we know, without a doubt, we will return again and again
to sub-Saharan Africa. As Hemingway said, “I never knew of
a morning that I woke up in Africa that I was not happy.”
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