WARNING: This post expresses bourgeois sentiments, and contains only a single photograph of an animal. Readers who find such sentiments insufferable, or who "just want to see the damn animal photos already", are encouraged to skip to the next post.

Glamour camping - "glamping" - is the popular term for the accommodations we chose for our trip.

Glamping is not cheap. But we reasoned: If you're going on safari, then you're going to pay a lot for the plane tickets, and you're going to pay a lot for the safari, and you're going to have to pay for accommodations, so... why not pay a little extra to relax in comfort? After all, you'll probably never do any of this again.

Over our six nights on safari, we stayed in four different places.

We spent one night in Sarova Lion Hill Game Lodge, at Lake Nakuru. As with all of the places we stayed, it was clean and offered excellent service - and the food here was the best we had in Kenya - but it wasn't a tented camp at all. We stayed in a "standard room" that felt like an elegant African... motel.

While in Maasai Mara, we spent three nights in Sarova Mara Game Camp, another fine establishment of the Sarova Hotels organization. We enjoyed the same high-quality experience we'd had at Lake Nakuru. Better still, our room really was a tent - a tent pitched on a concrete pad, sheltered by a fixed roof:

Please excuse the inferior quality of this photo. I took it with an iPad, not the Canon.

And yet... the roof of the tent was so low that I had to duck my head to move about inside. And the mosquito netting that surrounded the bed - pulled back in the photo below - was another obstacle, especially in the dark.

Inside our tent at Sarova Mara Game Camp.

Yes, I know: I was in a tent. But we were supposed to be glamping! This was mildly disappointing. (You did read the warning at the top of this post, right?)

We fared much better at Larsen's Camp, where we spent our second night in Samburu. Here, too, the tent was pitched on a concrete pad - but here, there was no permanent superstructure, just a fancy, double-shelled tent.

The Doctor enjoys the view from her tent.

There was ample room to move about within.

We were very fortunate at Larsen's Camp: although the camp has twenty tents, we three were its only guests on the night we were there. Thus, we enjoyed impeccable service at all times.

We took our lunch and dinner al fresco, on the north bank of the Ewaso Ng'iro River, beneath the fig trees.

The trees were full of monkeys intent on sharing our meals, but we didn't have to worry. The Samburu moran who commenced the lunch by serenading us on his flute quickly put the instrument away, and pulled out a slingshot instead. With a few well-aimed stones, he quickly taught the monkeys to keep their distance.

As much as we enjoyed Larsen's Camp, The Woman and I agree that the first place we stayed - Elephant Bedroom Camp - was the best place of all.

Here, each tent is pitched on a raised wooden platform. This has three advantages over a tent pitched on a ground-level concrete pad:

It keeps the tent cleaner and freer of insects, mitigating the need for mosquito netting.
It eliminates the need to pitch a tent with a floor. Inside these tents, you walk directly on the wooden platform (which is well-sanded and finished), or on the carpets laid down upon it.
It allows a plunge pool to be embedded in the front deck.

It's hard to see the plunge pool in the following photo - it's obscured by the stairs - but trust me: it's there, and there is no better way to cool off in the late afternoon.

When the plunge pool is not in use, it must be secured with a Velcro cover. Otherwise (animal photo alert!), monkey business may ensue:

Inside the tent was the most elegant of all bedrooms...

...and the most charming of the fully-plumbed bathrooms that we enjoyed in our glamps.

The Woman was pleased! And so was I.