&Beyond Serengeti Under Canvas

The sights were breathtaking. From sunrise to sunset, each day was truly a new adventure. We experienced incredible sights and saw a lot of game from a very close range. I could go on for hours giving highlights of our trip but the experience of the great wildebeest migration was incredible. We literally saw hundreds of thousands traveling in herds, canvassing for new green pastures of the beautiful Serengeti. We got extremely lucky and were able to see a crossing at the Masai Mara and even a crocodile attack and kill of a wildebeest. We loved our time at Serengeti Under Canvas!

Serengeti Under Canvas was a little rougher than I expected, but while there, on my husband’s birthday we were able to see two lions, four cheetachs, including one who devoured its prey in front of us, two leopards, and a herd of wildebeest crossing the Mara river that lasted almost half an hour. That made everything worthwhile, bucket shower and all!

Serengeti – Serengeti Under Canvas. They have a great reputation and their service lived up to it. Our butler, Alex, was quick to prepare a shower and quick to offer a drink (we loved Amarula and Afrikoko liqueurs). Their chef was great…. we especially liked his soup recipes. They varied our eating arrangements to sometimes be at single tables on the lawn to sometimes having all the tables being under the dining fly. There’s nothing that can compare to the romantic atmosphere of a gourmet dinner by candlelight in the wilds of the Serengeti. On the downside of Under Canvas…. they are not on top of their maintenance issues. The tent had missing zipper pulls, including the inside pull on the main door/flap, and had zippers that had ripped away from the canvas. The safari vehicles had plastic floor covering that was worn though and cracked. It didn’t make the vehicles any less useful, but for the premium price paid for Under Canvas, it would seem they could afford to keep things close to 5-star quality. It also seemed odd that the staff was not as concerned regarding safety issues …. At our other camps, when we were escorted to/from our tents at night, the camp personnel would be shining flashlights / torches into the woods and grass to see if there were any animals and it was obvious that they were watching out for our (and their) safety. At Under Canvas, there did not seem to be any care taken when moving through the camp at night. The butler walked with us with a flashlight, but did not shine it anywhere but on the path, then he walked back to the staff area with no flashlight for himself. We probably wouldn’t have noticed, so much, except that at Oliver’s, when we were escorted to our tent, when the flashlight was shown through the grass, many eyes were looking back at us. All benign eyes, luckily. Under Canvas had all sorts of animal sounds at night, but the personnel didn’t take any extra care to assure anything near our path was benign. Now to the wildlife. You suggested we stay 4 nights in Serengeti to increase the chances of seeing a crossing. Well we got to see wildebeest crossing the Mara River (our guide said 5000 or more) within 2 hours of landing at Kogatende!!!!!! It took our breath away. We had just landed at Kogatende and the guide picking us up said that we should hurry because the wildebeest looked like they were ready to cross, and he asked them to wait for us icon smile J Brewer USA 2012 It was awesome. We watched them for a couple of hours gathering to the left, then turning and running to the right bank of the river, going down to the river’s edge and then back again. And then all of a sudden one leaped into the river…….and we had a crossing. The vehicles all made a mad dash for the river’s edge and for 19 minutes there were wildebeest leaping into the river, being swept downstream against the current, toward hippos and crocs, but from our vantage point able to make it safely to our side of the river. The only sounds were that of wildebeest gruntings and their hoofs pounding along the riverbanks. After 19 minutes all that were going to cross had and there was silence. It was so surreal – we were totally overcome by the moment! Our guide, David was with us for this and all our drives. He was very knowledgeable and really worked hard to find wildlife for us such as lions including cubs, leopard, zebra, impala, buffalo, giraffe, ostrich including nest with eggs, buzzards, kites, eagles, klipspringer, eland, waterbuck, topi, oribi, baby hyena, rock hyrax, grants and thomsons gazelles, even a dung beetle, and on and on and on.