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A Nomad Safari, Tanzania 2025, Part 1 March 20, 2025

I met Mark Houldsworth, co-founder of Nomad Tanzania, at the RHS Chelsea flower show. We instantly connected over our passion for wildlife, and before long, after much excitement, an African research trip was booked.

I have previously spent many happy times in Kenya, where my sculpting journey began at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. However, I hadn’t been back to my beloved Africa since researching lions in 2019, before Covid. I was eager to hear about the Nomad Tanzania camps we would visit.

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Preparing for the Journey

I travel with a converted explorer case as my mobile studio. It was quickly revamped with a few new features to accommodate plein-air sculpting in different conditions. My sculptures hang upside down inside the case during transit – an unusual set up that often raises eyebrows at airport security! In preparation for this trip, I made nine small maquettes of subjects, made from plasticine over a lightweight armature, allowing me to get straight into observational sculpting as soon as we arrived.

Arrival In Tanzania

We landed in Kilimanjaro and were scooped up by Giro from Nomad, who took us to Arusha. The next morning at 6am, we met our guide for the next 12 days, Joel Mfinanga. Aged 38, Joel has been with Nomad for 15 years. Starting as a waiter, he has worked his way up to become one of their top guides. Nomad has an impressive fleet of 30 fully trained, highly knowledgeable guides, each equipped with a liveried Landcruiser.

Entamanu Camp

We drove for six hours heading east towards the infamous Ngorongoro Crater, run by the Ngorongoro Conservancy, named after the Maasai cowbell, the ‘Ngoro Ngoro’. We drove around the crater ring, driving north to our offbeat Entamanu Camp, the only camp on this north-western side of the crater. It was nestled almost invisibly among a canopy of beautiful Ormelek acacia trees.

The genuinely warm welcome by the Nomad team was a sign of things to come. There’s a Maasai word ‘Rafiki’, meaning ‘friend’, and these guys became them. Our stay was led by ‘super charged’ Mohamed ‘Moody’ who’d been with Nomad for 17 years.

Our privately located cottage, overlooking the rim of the Crater, was the perfect place to adjust to the rhythms of the African bush – all helped along by clanking of local cattle heading in and out of their bomas. It was so perfect for the first five minutes I thought the sound was coming from a hidden speaker!

Later in the afternoon, we walked a few kilometres to a local Maasai village with our guide Joseph and armed park ranger Derek. It was wonderful to be on foot reading the tracks and learning about medicinal uses of the local flora. Upon arrival, we were greeted by singing and dancing, which could have been a bit ‘touristy’, but it wasn’t, this was the real thing. Having grown up on a cattle farm myself, I was blown away when six tiny carves entered the dark boma we had been welcomed into to learn about Maasai ways. The calves were settling in for the night, being safely put to bed by their Maasai keepers.

Back at the lodge, it would have been rude not to accept a delicious Painted Dog gin and tonic served by lethal barman, Dafay. He and Jackson needed watching … otherwise you would be carried home in a wheelbarrow! The food and drink were fresh and delicious, all served with big smiles and well trained professionalism.

Ngorongoro Crater

Joel shared with Laura and I the same eagerness to maximise our time with wildlife, so we set off at 6:30am to be the first vehicle down into the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is a dormant volcano, 19km in diameter, 0.6km deep, and home to a mind blowing 25,000 animals. It was mesmerising to be on the crater floor as the sun rose, and Joel’s intimate knowledge of the land quickly led us to observe hunting lions.

Seeing incredible wildlife photographs is one thing, but for me, to physically witness exactly how an animal moves about in its natural habitat beats any other form of research. Observing it in person allows me to understand not just its anatomy but its essence – why it is what it is and how it exists within its world. I think of sculpting as piecing together snippets of information, like a jigsaw. Real-time sculpting helps me capture the soul of the animal, which I later refine in my studio.

For photography, use a Nikon Z8. When travelling on foot, I carry a lightweight Leica V-Lux 114 bridge camera and an iPhone. I bring back lots of digital information to the more controlled environment of my studio where the sculptures are finished. I am so appreciative of the fact that I am able to bring back so much of the bush to my studio with the help of digital film. The early animaliers such as Pompom, Buggati, Mene and Barye, didn’t have that ability. And not forgetting all the others – mankind has been sculpting animals for at least 35,000 years.

Later, we then had a delightful 30 minutes watching a serval cat hunting mice.

Nomad Enhancing Lives

Nomad’s strapline, Life Enhanced, is a wonderful representation of their purpose. This is a safari company that runs a program called Enhancing Lives, using its network of award-winning camps to provide opportunities for the Nomad team, and support local communities through their extensive project programme. Every safari makes a difference. We met so many staff members who had worked their way up through the ranks of Nomad. There was a genuine feeling of a big Nomad family umbrella among the 300 staff across 11 camps. Lucy’s story particularly stood out, you can read about her and the Hope for Girls and Women of Tanzania in my next posts: Visiting the Hope Centre for Girls and Women in Tanzania and A Nomad Safari, Tanzania 2025, Part 2

Later, armed with Serengeti lager, we sat down to learn about the Kope Lion project, which I will also write about soon.

As we left camp, Jackson the waiter gave me a hand full of chillies – Pilipili Mbuzi and Pilipli Kichaa – to try and grow at home. There’s a global appreciation of chillies and one of my passions is to grow them. I try to collect chillies from around the world. They are a good ice breaker!

Serengeti Expeditionary Walking Camp

The next morning, early after breakfast, Laura and I set off with Joel towards the Expeditionary Walking Camp, guided by the legendary Prim Mlay. To be two people camping under the stars in the middle of nowhere, and being looked after by a bespoke Nomad team of six – including Boniphace, a national parks ranger – was a real privilege and the experience of a lifetime. We were camping within walking distance of Ndutu lake, not a million miles away from the Oldupai ranger post where paleoanthropologists and archeologists Mary and Louis Leakey studied one of the national historic sites of Tanzania.

On the ground your senses tune in and become alert. It was wonderful to think how humans have lived in this area since earliest man. It really felt like the cradle of mankind, and it was a privilege to be standing here. Prim’s knowledge was incredible, and it was fascinating to learn about the processes of nature from him.

Being in the middle of nowhere made the unexpected sun downer, a Wild Dog gin and tonic, even more special. During the day, Prim had used the word ‘ubuntu’, meaning ‘humanity to others’, which got me thinking about the tiny spec we were in this vast landscape. Later that night, I drifted off listening to the sounds of the bush under the most incredible starlit night.

The next morning, we parted company from another amazing Nomad team headed north towards west to the Serengeti Safari Ccamp – a seasonally mobile camp that follows the great migration in its annual Serengeti cycle. Prim packed up camp – he seldom stops for more than one night in the same place and as a result knows the Tanzanian bush better than almost anybody. I really enjoyed spending time with him.

Little did I know Nomad had packed the most amazing bush breakfast for us.

The Serengeti, which we drove across for hours, truly lives up to its name – endless plains. It was like being in a national geographic film set. Again, I was blown away the wilderness and the sheer scale of it.

Joel was determined to find cheetah, so he happily drive 40km in the wrong direction just for the chance to spot them. Like Prim, he has an undeniable passion for what he does. When we found the cheetah, a mother with her cubs, they all looked hungry and clearly in need of a kill. The night before, we had seen a lot of hyena near to where we camped, and suspected the cheetah were being pushed out of their normal hunting territories.

In my next post, I’ll tell you more about the rest of our amazing safari, seeing leopards and the other animals that inspired me, and how hard it was to leave.

nomad-tanzania.com

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