African Safaris » Camel Safari Africa

Camel safaris offer a leisurely face-to face encounter with the real Africa. Those who have the vision and energy to travel this way, emulating the Samburu and Rendille nomads of northern Kenya, will be rewarded with a memorable adventure.

It can be an unsettling experience to enter a world where there is no sign of a building for hundreds of miles and where waterholes can be 50 kilometres (30 miles) or more apart. But this unparalleled solitude is the attraction for those who travel with camels.

You meander along dry watercourses known as luggas and have the option of either walking or, when you get tired, riding. You cover up to 24 kilometres (15 miles) each day and rest a few hours during the midday heat.

Camel safaris wander through a vast and varied landscape in northern Kenya: the sacred slopes of Mount Nyiru, where the Samburu sacrifice bulls on an altar of giant rock outcrops; the and plains of El Barta, stippled with mauve grasses; the Leroghi plateau, rimmed with cedar forests; the Suguta Valley, an alien moonscape of laval scarps moulded by erupting volcanoes. Take a camel safari here and you will spend delightful days becoming acquainted with at least some of this spectacular scenery.

By 6 a.m. trekkers will be awake and enjoying their first mug of tea around the campfire. In another hour trekkers will be perched atop the camels’ humps or striding alongside the train, enjoying the brief cool that comes before the sun soars towards its zenith. By 9 a.m. they will be bathed in sweat and, for the first day at least, preoccupied with brushing off swarms of flies.

Trekkers should be reasonably fit and, of course, accustomed to walking long distances. The average daily distance is 24 kilometres (15 miles), even though camels can cover 40 kilometres (25 miles) with ease. On the first day, every joint and muscle in your body complains. After that you should become attuned to the pace.

You are on the move for four hours in the morning, before the heat becomes intolerable, and two hours in the evening when the sun is sliding towards the horizon. The midday break is essential for camels and people alike to browse and rest.

Clothes area matter of individual taste. They should be cool and comfortable and should not constrict your legs when striding. Bring a bathing suit for plunging into rivers, and a sweater or light jacket for chilly evenings. All this should be packed into a kit bag tough enough to survive the wear and tear of being strapped to a camel.

Trekkers spend the evenings sprawled in exhausted abandon around the campfire. Sleep comes easily on camp beds beneath an indigo sky. Camps are set up beside water holes that herdsmen have dug for their cattle. Each water hole is protected from wild animals and is reasonably clean.

Often the evenings are punctuated by the chilling laugh of hyaenas. And sometimes dawn reveals the spoor of a herd of elephants or a solitary lion.

The camel caravans are tended by local herders, who handle the mercurial moods of their charges with good humour. Camels can I)e cantankerous and wilful as well as beguiling. They have been known to crush the kneecaps of their herders with one s of their teeth.

By comparison, safari camels trained and usually obedient. To silken-lashed beauties gliding eagerly the sand is to be reminded of sail coming into harbour on a stiff breeze. The impression, however, is erroneous mounted, it feels more like being a Atlantic gale until you acquire your sea leg.

At first sight, mounting a camel daunting task. However, once tried it can be executed with ease.
Some safari-goers make the daily almost entirely atop their mount other prefer to walk. To be perched on these beast is less precarious than it seems thought . Riders are never dislodged perhaps they realise it is too far to fall.

Mounted or not, you are hosts, slow, quirky pace of African travel the panoramas and pitfalls that unfold the way. Therein lies the magic of came Africa’s intimate secrets, hidden who travel by car, are revealed to with more time to spare.