Fun and game with the Masai

Children and long game drives don't strike me as a good combo. Imagine the opportunities for cries of: "Are we there yet?". The silent minutes ticking by as you watch a pride of dozing lions ("We saw lions yesterday. Can't we go?"). By lunchtime on our second day at Intrepids Camp in the Masai Mara, I knew we'd picked the perfect safari.

My just-turned-nine daughter, Marina, jumped down from the Land Rover with a huge grin. "Look," she cried, stretching out her arm to show me a vividly beaded Masai bracelet. "Shopping again?" I teased. "No, I won it in an archery competition. The Masai girls made it," she said, all breathless excitement.

"We made our own bows and arrows. And the string is bark from a tree. And guess what? I held a lamb. It had no wool, just short fur. Like our cat, only not as soft ... and ... and ..."

The day before, Marina had presented me with a set of hyena and porcupine footprints she'd made from plaster of Paris on a morning's tracking along the riverbed beside the camp. She'd gone with Parmasao (aka John), the Masai naturalist who runs Intrepid's children's programme (game-tracking, ecology, Masai culture), and the reason we had chosen Intrepids.

Quietly proud of what she'd learned, my daughter, normally reticent, explained how leopard prints are different from cheetahs' (a cheetah's claws don't retract, for better traction during the chase); why hyena droppings are white (calcium from the bones they eat); and why hippos stay in the river all day (they'd get sunburned otherwise).

Every morning and afternoon Parmasao or his brother, Siloma (Joseph), would lead the children off, Pied Piper-style, for a fresh adventure. At mealtimes we'd be regaled with their stories of new discoveries and, in the evenings, these urban, TV-generation children would sit quietly around the campfire listening to Masai yarns, enthralled.

Joining our 6am game drive next day, Marina - knowing now how to watch, listen and look for the details - wasn't asking, "Are we there yet?" but "Are we going back already?" How much better was this than hanging out on a beach somewhere sunny but bland? Build sandcastles? Boring. Let's make a fire with two sticks and a handful of dry elephant dung. Nag mum for sweeties? Oh, no. Learn tooth-brushing the Masai way, with a twig from a pepper-bark tree.

Meanwhile, I had my holiday too - undistracted, able to slow down and feel Africa's subtle spell, its peace, its real magic. No amount of watching BBC Wildlife could have evoked the smell of the mist rising from the damp earth at dawn, the profound stillness of the ancient landscape, thevastness of the savanna, its tawny grass moving with the breeze, changing with the light.

There was an intensity to seeing, in the wild, things which had seemed so familiar from films - yet now seemed totally new: the gazelles with their go-faster stripes and pert, flicking tails; the hyena with their sneaky, dragging gait; the vultures waiting silently to scrap over the remains of a kill; the giraffes like supermodels, all legs and eyelashes; the water buffalo, their huge, draped horns like bad wigs; the warthogs running with tails held high, like the aerials on the back of a scooter; the lions lying on their backs, tempting you to tickle their tummies.

And, in July (to be repeated in October), the migrating wildebeest playing follow-the-leader. In the distance, mile-long queues criss-crossed the savanna; up close their stiff-backed running gait looked awkward, their staccato, grunting moo sounded plain stupid.

For mother and daughter it was a week of bonding over new experiences: the heart-lurching excitement of our first sight of elephants as we flew low over their waterhole; the first closeup of zebra ("they look fake"); the sounds of the night - bush babies shrieking with laughter, the bell-chimes of the frogs.

There was the surprise of a bush breakfast - complete with dazzling white tablecloths and fine china - on the bank of the hippo pool one sunny morning; giggling at their noises ("so rude and disgusting"), we collapsed with laughter as we tried to count in Masai, complete with hand gestures.

Just how much Marina had learned became clear as we left Intrepids. Landing at the neighbouring camp on our way back to Mombasa, the plane rolled to a stop on the soft earth. Someone in the row behind us said: "I wonder what those hoof prints are." Marina responded, confident and clear: "Oh, mostly zebra. But see those ones over there? They're wildebeest." Parmasao would have been proud.

Way to go

Sandra Lane travelled to Kenya with Tropical Places (0800 083 6662; www.tropicalplaces.co.uk); a one-week tour, featuring five nights' full board at the Mara Intrepids Camp and two nights' all-inclusive at the Voyager Beach Resort in Mombasa, costs from £1,349pp, child reductions around 25 per cent when sharing with two adults, including British Airways flights, transfers and game drives on safari. For further information on Kenya, visit www.magicalkenya.com

Gimme five... reef and wildlife holidays
Destination guide: Kenya