DESTINATION: AFRICA : In Tanzania, Affordable Adventure : Eye-to-eye with a world of wildlife, in comfort and safety on a 12-day safari

We drove across a dry riverbed, then up a slight embankment into a wall of dense shrubbery. Our off-road vehicle plowed through the bush in a snake-like pattern, emerging moments later onto a flat expanse dotted with acacia trees.

In the knee-high grass to my right something moved. It was a kori bustard, a homely brown bird as big as my Australian shepherd back home. Camera in hand, I leaned out the window while the others stood on their seats to photograph the bird from the open roof.

As soon as I zoomed in on it, our guide whispered from the front seat, “Don’t move, don’t move.”.

I looked back toward him, and there, through the windshield, was a huge elephant--rather, the upper legs of an elephant--towering over our Land Cruiser.

My body froze, and I noticed the abrupt silence, except for the kori bustard calling “ooomp-ooomp.”

The six of us waited for the elephant to make a move. Nobody spoke; nobody stirred. Except me. I quickly decided I hadn’t traveled 8,000 miles to Africa to miss capturing a photo of an enormous bull elephant so close I could practically count his eyelashes.

As the elephant inched closer (if inching is possible with elephants), I steadied my camera while lowering my head to glance up at him from my open window. He seemed wider than our vehicle, and a good 4 feet taller.

The bull raised his massive trunk high in the air and directed it toward us. Our guide whispered that he was smelling us to learn who we were. One of our group didn’t want to be sniffed, and he moved abruptly back down into the car.

Startled, the bull drew back his trunk, flapped his ears wildly and trumpeted louder than a brass band. Then he was gone, but not before I got the shot of a lifetime: an entire frame capturing the head of a curious Tanzanian elephant.

It was a good start for my 12-day safari in East Africa.

For years I’d dreamed about seeing wild animals in their natural habitats--but up close, not from a tour bus. I pictured myself on safari (an affordable one), off the beaten path, where zebras outnumber tourists and roaring lions substitute for alarm clocks.

My husband’s idea of a dream vacation is a five-star hotel with a pool, preferably next to a casino. The raccoons in our backyard are all the wildlife he wants to see. So when the time was right for my vacation in Africa, I went with my closest friend from childhood, Mandy, who shared my dream.

When we began planning, we knew only that we wanted to camp. We started reading guidebooks, talking to travel specialists and researching safari operators on the Internet. We found a vast range of itineraries and packages. There are private customized safaris, family safaris, “wing safaris” (flying from camp to camp), even camel-train safaris. The top end features luxury accommodations: permanent tented camps with king-size beds, private showers and toilets, and cocktail hours.

At the other extreme was “participant camping,” in which the campers set up and break down their tents, cook their meals and camp at public sites.

First we settled on Tanzania as our destination, for its generally mild climate and fewer tourists. Then we chose Kibo Safari Co., which promised experience, safety and affordability without compromising quality. The cost was $2,595 per person (plus $1,500 air fare) for a 12-day safari to four private camps, each different in character.

There are said to be 129 recognized tribes, the Masai being the best known, among Tanzania’s 30 million people. Although Swahili is the official language, English is widely spoken.

The diverse countryside has an altitude that ranges from sea level to almost 20,000 feet; about one-quarter of the land is reserved for ecology and wildlife conservation. Humidity is low, and temperatures rarely climb above 80 degrees, dipping to 50 to 60 degrees at night.

So last October we flew first to Kenya, and after a few days in Nairobi to get acclimated, we boarded a bus for the 156-mile ride to Arusha, the “safari capital of Tanzania.” The bus broke down, and the driver had to hitch a ride back to the city, two hours away, to retrieve a replacement bus.

Despite that delay, we were met in Arusha by our guides, Hagai and Salim, who took us to the home of Kibo Safari owner Willy Chambulo, a Masai turned businessman.

The large stucco home Willy built sits on a ridge above a valley. When he is in town, he often entertains clients before and after safari. Four rooms within two cottages on the property hold up to eight guests. Although we were the only guests that evening, Willy prepared an elaborate traditional African meal for us while we sipped wine on the veranda.

In the morning, the rest of the group arrived--seven fellow Americans--and off we went in two Land Cruisers. Our group, ranging in age from 28 to 50ish, came from around the U.S.: one couple from Connecticut and one from Wisconsin, two women from Virginia whose husbands also preferred five-star hotels, and a man from New York City whose wife declined to sleep in the vicinity of lions.

The farther we traveled from Arusha, the more Masai we encountered. Men wore the traditional red robes, sandals and beaded jewelry. Masai children herded cattle, and women carried bundles of sticks on their heads. Adolescent boys with white-painted faces showed off their new warrior status.

The flat, dusty landscape was dotted with family compounds: straw huts encircled by fences of thorny bushes. The center hut housed the husband and was surrounded by the huts of his wives, children and other family members.

Feeling as if I were in a National Geographic film, I stood on my seat, leaned out of the roof hatch and took pictures of everything that moved.

Within two hours we reached Tarangire Park, a lush terrain punctuated by rolling hills brimming with rich green shrubbery and ancient baobab trees.

A five-man crew had preceded us, setting up camp on the rim of a riverbank with a miles-wide view of the brush.

This was my kind of camping: cots with foam mattresses and wool blankets, bedside tables, and chairs set up on each tarp porch.

Our first evening out, as I climbed into bed, my leg brushed against something warm huddled beneath the sheets. Shrieking, I vaulted from bed. Sweeping back the covers, I braced for a hideous critter. It was a hot water bottle.

Our camp had tented toilets-- buckets with toilet seats placed over 2-foot holes. The showers were spouted 3-gallon buckets hanging from poles--but the shower water was heated for us, and our clothes were washed and folded. We were really roughing it.

Our guides, human encyclopedias of wildlife information, managed to find many camouflaged animals. Our first day out we were fortunate to see a leopard sleeping in a tree, the legs of his half-consumed dinner, a gazelle, dangling from a branch. A lone giraffe and some playful wart hogs hung out near a water hole. Zebras huddled next to wildebeests.

At dusk, a sudden coolness descended and the acacia trees became silhouettes against the rose-tinted sky. On the ride back to camp I stood all the way, letting the sights, sounds and smells of Africa pass through me as the sun slipped below the horizon.

Although I’d signed on as a vegetarian, I feared the menu might feature roasted impala and rack of wart hog. But our chef, Estomiy, created many diverse and delicious vegetarian meals, and meat dishes as well.

In the dining tent, we sat with our guides at one long, candle-lighted table. The crew served us individually, circling the table and filling (and refilling) our plates.

The first night’s dinner set the standard: onion-basil soup, black beans, coconut rice, vegetable-filled pastries, roast pork, corn, avocado and tomato salad, freshly baked bread, and bananas flambe for dessert. My plan to lose weight diminished with every bite.

In the morning, lion paw prints adorned our porch tarp. And our washbasins--canvas sinks on wooden legs--were missing; the crew found most of them in the brush where they’d been dragged by nocturnal visitors, most likely spotted hyenas.

At daylight, we met with Mamoyo, a member of the Datoga tribe living near Lake Eyasi, the “forgotten lake” at the southern border of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Mamoyo directed us through miles of barren landscape to the Hazda (known as “bushmen”). Among the last of Africa’s hunter-gatherers, the Hazda live primitively, under hollowed-out bushes and with few possessions.

We watched three Hazda men start a fire with sticks and a stone, and listened to them talk in their “clicking” dialogue. Later, some of our group joined them on a hunt for a dik-dik, a miniature antelope-type animal with eyes like a seal pup’s. I couldn’t bear to see “Bambi” speared, so I stayed behind--and silently rejoiced when they came back empty-handed.

Hazda are always on the lookout for food, and even the tiniest boy carried a wooden spear. It was the first time I’d seen a 3-year-old not only permitted to carry a large, sharp stick, but actually encouraged to run with it.

Our next campsite sat on the rim of Ngorongoro Crater, a 12-mile-wide extinct volcano. We looked out over 102 square miles of lakes, grassland, ponds and tree-studded meadows.

An estimated 30,000 animals live in the crater, including the diminishing rhino. Pink flamingos by the hundreds, pools of hippos, lions lounging in the sun and vervets in trees confirmed why it’s called the “Garden of Eden.”

The crater campsite was the only place where we needed armed guards. They protected us at night, not from wildlife but from local Masai who are known to cut through tents to steal campers’ possessions.

Our last destination, the Serengeti, is Tanzania’s largest national park (6,000 square miles). Home to one of the greatest concentrations of plains animals left on earth, the Serengeti typifies everyone’s version of “dream Africa.”

We entered the Serengeti from the southeast, where the terrain was like a newly harvested wheat field in Kansas--miles of horizontal landscape with hardly a tree in sight. As we drove on, the dried grass became taller and acacia trees more abundant.

Camping in the Serengeti is incomparable. So remote was our site that we were in awe that Salim and Hagai managed to find it at the end of each day. We joked at their directions--left at the gazelles, then right at the buffalo--but we were never lost.

On our last night camping we fell asleep to the sound of crickets singing and hyenas laughing. A pride of lions living next to our campsite growled throughout the night. The sound of twigs cracking woke me at one point, and I sat up in bed to see Mandy peeking out through the screen window, motioning for me to join her. A spotted hyena, faintly illuminated by the moon, was curled up on our porch tarp. Transfixed, we watched in silence as he slept.

By morning he was gone--and so were our washbasins.

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GUIDEBOOK

Tenting in Tanzania

Getting there: Individual air fare to Nairobi, Kenya, the jumping-off point for East Africa safaris, is currently very high: over $3,600 round trip from L.A. It’s best to book safaris through tour operators offering packages that include air fare, or shop around for cheap fares offered by discount brokers.

Our land arrangements were made by one of the travel agencies that represent Kibo in the U.S., Baobab Safari Co. in San Francisco, tel. (800) 835-3692. Baobab has six safaris similar to ours through Dec. 3 for $2,595 per person, double occupancy; air fare is not included.

There are scores of companies that specialize in African safaris, but “affordable” agencies we uncovered include Safari Center in Manhattan Beach, Calif., tel. (800) 624- 5342, which has 12-day “value safaris” for $2,835 (plus air fare); single supplements run up to $420.

Thomson Safaris, tel. (800) 235-0289, includes air fare from New York in the price of two-week Serengeti safaris: $3,890, double, for “roughing it” in tents rather than lodges, and $4,690 for more comfort.

For more information: Tanzania Embassy, Information Officer, 2139 R St. N.W., Washington, DC 20008; tel. (202) 939- 6125, fax (202) 797-7408.