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Bilila Lodge Kempinski is a dream African hideaway
The new-luxury Bilila Lodge Kempinski, in the middle of Serengeti, Tanzania, is one non-stop, three-dimension, 360-degree experience.
By: Mary Goselow
You wake up here at Tanzania's newest ultra-luxury resort, Bilila Lodge Kempinski, Serengeti and not only look all around you, but up and down too.
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Some rooms, suites and villas face east, for sunrise over the infinite plains. Some face west, for sunset, some south. All have the view that is safari personified. You reach most areas, be it your accommodation or the spa, via wood walkways, what seems like mile after mile of tree paths set ten feet above the ground: the wood floor slats are Indonesian benkerai timber, the handrails either side are African eucalyptus. You look up, to the blue-blue sky, and the kopjes, rocky pinnacles, that are frequented by baboons who are sunset addicts. You look down, to the shrubs and ground beneath. No, you are not looking down at snakes, by the way - small green mushrooms are ultra-sounds, keeping snakes away: it it true that the owner of Bilila Lodge Kempinski, Ali Albwardy, does not exactly love snakes? At any rate, we have a new WOW.travel maxim, only stay in resorts owned by snake-phobes.
Oh, the Serengeti National Park, set up in 1951 and immortalized in Serengeti Shall Not Die, the 1959 movie and book by Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael: come for the annual migration and “Whether people speak English or Russian, Swahili or German, they’ll stand there, speechless, and take their neighbor by the hand when, for the first time in their lives, they watch on as twenty thousand zebras and hundred thousands of wildebeests trek across the endless plains.” Migration is more or less continuous, round the calendar, and depending on the month is half an hour to 4.5 hours' drive from the lodge, round the year, nearly. From December to May, it is running east to west, south of you: for the first months, game animals give birth to over 8,000 calves a day, of whom less than half will live to see their first birthday. By June the migration has turned north, by July to August it is west of you (still heading north), towards the end of September it turns north-east, into Kenya's Masai Mara, and then east. By November it turns south, back into Tanzania and east of the lodge. At some times you can even hear the animals' noise from your very bedroom - I am told it sounds like a night-long orgasm.
The Masai word Serengeti seems to mean a vast plain, and they had been grazing their livestock here for over 200 years before legendary German geographer and explorer Dr. Oscar Baumann arrived in 1892. Today the park consists of 5,700 square miles of grassland plains and savanna as well as riverine forest and woodlands. To its north, over the Kenyan border, it is continuous with the Masai Mara National Reserve. To the south-east of the park is Ngorongoro Conservation Area, to the south-west lies Maswa Game Reserve, and to the western borders are Ikorongo and Grumeti Game Reserves, finally to the north-east lies Loliondo Game Control Area. The only people who can live in the Serengeti are park employees, conservationists with the Frankfurt Zoological Society, and guests and staff of a mere five in-park, non-tented lodges, of which Bilila Lodge Kempinski is the newest, and last (the others, if you must, are Lobo Wildlife Lodge, Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge, Seronera Wildlife Lodge and Serengeti Sopa Lodge): all resort guests and drive-in tourists pay $50 per adult per day, and $10 per kid under 16, which helps retain the quality of the experience.
It was not migration time when we visited but we still came for safari, just five weeks after the official opening of Bilila Lodge Kempinski by none other than HE The President of the Republic of Tanzania, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. In a few weeks' time Ali Albwardy will be launching his own airline, Safari-Plus, so you can arrive in style, in a 19-seat Hawker Beechcraft 1900-D: Albwardy is buying two so that one can rotate clockwise, one anti-clockwise, servicing not only Serengeti but at least Dar es-Salaam and Zanzibar (he has Kempinski hotels in both places) and soon Arusha. We, however, flew in from Arusha, 50 minutes away, in a 13-seat Coastal Air Cessna 208-B Caravan 1. The pilot landed on the dirt airstrip that is Seronera Airstrip and we were welcomed by Carine Wittwer, the Swiss manager of Bilila Lodge Kempinski.
The 55-minute drive from the private (not private) airstrip is a safari in itself - you might easily pass dozens, literally, of elephants, giraffes, hippos, impalas, zebras and even lion. You also pass occasional 'scarecrows', black and blue poison-impregnated cloths hanging from trees to attract tse-tse flies, which love those colors.
Finally, in the middle of eternal bush in the unique national park of Serengeti, you arrive at a futuristic thatched lodge, single floor from this side, long and sleek. That thatch, and the dull moss walls below, blend oh-so-well with the landscape. Smiling Masai warriors, 16 of them in all, with lots of beads around their necks, wrists and ankles and wrapped in an assortment of red checked blankets, provided a welcome - along with a glass of juice on a tray. They were subsequently around the resort the whole time, providing security, though how they would ward off elephants with their long sticks was a bit of a mystery. No problem, said Carine Wittwer. Animals only come prowling if mothers get separated from their babies. They keep away.
Bilila Lodge Kempinski is totally stunning. Go through to the main public area. Stand looking ahead and stretch your arms out wide. Because of the lie of the land, you are now upper level of a two-floor building, with some exterior areas built of roof-high panels of dry-stone blocks, others moss-colored concrete. Ahead of you, you look down at a curvilinear infinity pool, and immediately beyond and beneath a is a watering hole where, by golly, animals do come at certain times of year, and beyond that, the bush, the plain, the great wide Serengeti. Your arms are stretched out still. Follow your left arm on and on, past a lounge where afternoon tea is being served, help yourself to home-made scones and jam, and beyond, a library that is magnificently stocked with hardback books on game, topography, suitable culinary themes. Your right arm, however, goes past the massive indoor-outdoor restaurant, lit by overhead balloon-shaped 'knitting wool balls' of twisted wood, and on to a private dining area which could well seat 40. Below all this, down 24 gracefully curving steps, or down the elevator, are the gym, a games room with full-size snooker table, meeting rooms, a business center, an indoor-outdoor bar and a temperature-controlled wine cellar with a 120-bin selection of South African wines. Yes, there is also a conference room.
This luxury resort has 77 rooms, suites and villas - there is also, hidden from public view, a full village for 143 employees. Yes, this is self-sufficiency. The architect, South African François Theron, says he was inspired by wildlife expert Dr Ian Plair to produce something that allows everyone to see as much as possible of the bush ('well, Africa has such a story to tell and there is a need for man to interface with
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the bush', he says). Now Bilila Lodge Kempinski is finished, he feels good, when sitting on a terrace, that the building dances with the environment. Interior designers Jacci Samios and Ockert Snyman, who work as Jacket Interiors, are also from South Africa, whence the furnishings, including fabulous silk taffeta curtains, came too. The Jac-ket duo has come up with a concept that has, well everything. Your room, which might have its own plunge pool, overlooks the infinity pool, plus the watering hole. At this thoughtful place, interior design is suitably modern, the library and fullsize snooker table await, as do the gym, and safaris. But you might merely lie in your freestanding tub, contemplating the nature of luxury. You will take away a lifetime of memories, whatever.
We loved corner suite 401, which you could easily call home - apart from the view, of course. You have Tanzanian timber floors, and outside deck (which has an eight-foot infinity plunge pool, a second shower and a monocular, telescope on a pole, for better animal viewing). You have great air-conditioning, instant complimentary broadband, a fabulous four-post bed with mosquito drapes, L'Occitane toiletries, a safe and minibar. What are you missing? Honestly, I could only think of fresh flowers, which are not allowed in Serengeti.
Bilala Lodge Kempinski has fabulous food. You can breakfast in your room or at the copious buffet on the three-station restaurant. Lunch is probably pool-side, with African tapas. Dinner can be in the boma, outdoor kraal restaurant, or perhaps a poolside barbecue or a more-formal dinner up in the restaurant. You might even choose to dine in the lovely brick-walled wine cellar, perhaps with a tasting of some of its numerous South African labels. I can tell you from experience that chef Eduan Naude's tastes are good, and home-made breads and Tanzanian coffee are memorable - a single espresso, for instance, comes with a home-made cookie and brown and white sugars, and sweeteners.
We went on a tour of some of the other rooms. The Presidential Suite, all of 900 square feet, overlooks its own watering hole, which apparently attracted no fewer than ten elephants simultaneously one morning two weeks before. Stay here for its 20 foot-long pool, high over the plain. The only sound here is the tinkling water of its infinity edge. Without it, there would be the music of silence. You have, by the way, two master bedrooms, with indoor and private outdoor bathrooms, a gym, a full kitchen and dining for eight. On a less lavish scale, I especially liked the Banagi Villa , again totally private, again two bedrooms but with a mere 15-foot pool: you face west, for those sunsets. If you want a one-bedroom lodge, west-facing Horizon, with a 12-foot pool, could well be your choice.
Ranger Samuel took us for a 'drive', the local term for a safari. We had to have the windows of the Toyota 4x4 closed for the first half hour, because of those tse-tse flies (yes, they eat me too, said Samuel, but the bite just hurts a bit, nothing more). I started counting animals but gave up - think in terms of dozens when it comes to elephants, giraffe, hippo and zebra and hundreds of impala, plus four warthogs and, yes, two lion. They were not a happy courting couple, this last fine pair, but probably mother and teenage son, both luxuriating, lazing on a stone. This is what lion do, it seems, for up to 16 hours a day. When they are hungry, the women go hunting. The males then eat first, to get maximum energy to consummate relationships to produce the next generation, then the babies, finally the huntresses themselves. The ideal finale to such a safari, by the way, is not champagne, or hot tea or coffee (even Tanzanian) but a fabulous, make-your-body supple Thai massage. And yes, the resort's six-room Anantara spa, reached by another long raised-up-high walkway, actually has Thai therapists, and my massage was great. The spa director, the bubbly Khun Parudee Pattaradirek, is a born comedian,.
Yes, as you will have realised Bilila Lodge Kempinski has everything - including, thanks to the global support company Resort Doc, an onsite doctor and nurse 24/7. Resort team members are trained in fire control, and bush fires are prevented by deliberate burning of vegetation around the entire property. Self-sufficiency is paramount. Water comes from four bores sunk nearly 500 feet into the ground, electricity from six diesel-fuelled generators - solar panels could irritate some animals, which would immediately upset the entire animal life cycle here.. Sustainability throughout is paramount. Human waste is treated at a dedicated plant a mile away, and returned as gray water, for the garden. Other garbage is taken away by suppliers of, say, mineral water. To cut down the amount of vegetable matter brought onsite, Kempinski is setting up its own pre-prep unit back in Arusha, so carrots and potatoes will arrive at the resort already peeled.
After my massage, I zipped back to the gym and then swam just as the sun was setting. Oh my GOSH was that beautiful, the sky moonstone blue, the sun a soft marigold, small birds flying across in front of it all. As a German industrialist stretched out on one of the Dedon-type loungers said 'I am lost for words'. Again, the music of silence.
We checked out just as the national basketball hero, Hasheem Thabeet, who plays with the Memphis Grizzlies, was about to arrive. Yes, the word is already getting out about the new-look luxury that is Bilila Lodge Kempinski, Serengeti, Tanzania. We started our hour-long ride back to the airstrip (tally of animals this time? Add in a pair of ostrichs and at least a hundred buffalo), took Coastal Air back to Arusha and met up with Abba Moledina, the former Vancouver-based contact lenses specialist who runs his family's destination management and tour company Ranger Safaris Ltd. He says Bilila Lodge Kempinski is marvellous, marvellous, echoing my words. But words are not necessary for this more-than-safari heaven, which offers the new-luxury of silence.
Bilila Lodge Kempinski, Serengeti, Tanzania
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