African Safari: By DUNCAN STRAUSS I had a hunch the Africa trip would be pretty phenomenal when, before departing for Nairobi, my missing credit card was returned to me at London’s Heathrow airport. I made the grim discovery that the card was gone shortly after entering the teeming British Airways terminal, and by the time I stepped into the cartoonishly long, snaking check-in line, I was absolutely awash in panic. Then, I heard my name blaring over the P.A., reported to a special British Airways counter, and there stood a beaming supervisor waving my credit card that someone had found on the ground at Heathrow and turned in! Even before my bonehead move with the credit card lurched to that improbably happy ending, though, I was immensely excited and optimistic about the trip. A fervent animal lover with a corresponding interest in the Dark Continent, I not only had long wanted to explore East Africa, but I had particularly wanted to do so escorted by Ralph Helfer. Helfer is a soulful, gentle man who’s 71, but looks a good decade younger. His long, varied career has been marked by multiple, often-intersecting segments, from decades ago, when he worked as a pioneering animal trainer who created “affection training,” providing animals to numerous films, like the 1962 William Holden flick “The Lion,” and such late-60s television series as “Daktari” and “Gentle Ben”; to giving lectures and seminars; to writing books, including the 1997 semi- fictional elephant saga “Modoc,” slated to be made into a feature film shortly, produced by Kevin Costner’s company, Tig Productions. He also spends more and more of each year living in Kenya--a place he fell in love with some 40 years ago--and through his tiny travel company, Eden International, leads a handful of safaris each year. Although he’s been taking folks on safari for about 20 years, most people only learn of this through word-of-mouth. He doesn’t advertise, probably because he’s clearly not seeking big numbers or a booming business. Abercrombie & Kent he ain’t. Helfer’s got a whole different approach. Can you take a cheaper safari? Probably. Can you take a better one? Probably not. For starters, any other such trip would lack an essential ingredient: Ralph Helfer. Very much related to that are the other elements that define his singular sojourns, including that he can often customize the itinerary--and he steadfastly limits the group size.
On this 17-day trek covering Kenya and Tanzania, there were just six of us. Considering that many safaris consist of groups two, three or even 10 times larger, our small size seemed too good to be true. In some ways, it was. Oh, it provided the virtues you’re seeking in a small safari (one vehicle versus many, uncongested vantage points for viewing and photographing animals, smaller potential pool of chronically-late or otherwise inconsiderate fellow travelers, etc.), but our sextet included two of the most unimaginably over-the-top compulsive talkers I’ve ever met. But the less said about them, the better. When the time came to book the safari, my way-better-half Colleen had to opt out, but my sister Nancy--also an animal lover with a strong interest in East Africa, who’d been hearing from us for years about Helfer--eagerly signed on. We flew from Los Angeles to London Heathrow, about a 10-hour flight, but rather than proceed directly onto the similar-length flight to Nairobi, we chose to break up those legs--and fully stretch ours--with a day of sightseeing and exercise in London, before returning to Heathrow to take the Nairobi flight. Both flights behind us, we checked into the Nairobi Safari Club, a handsomely-appointed and venerable all-suite hotel that served as a base camp of sorts--we returned there twice more before the trip’s conclusion--and offered amenities (health club, business center with Internet access, etc.) that we greeted enthusiastically after the long flight. continued (click "More")
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