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"View Slideshow\n\nThe air is scented with jasmine, the forest rich, the water of the lake gin-clear and lightly chilled. And if I dare to put an imprint on this paradise I had better get it right,\" Irish adventurer and former auctioneer Roland Purcell pronounced in 1988, when he came upon an expanse of soft sand on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania.\n\nHe proceeded to establish a resort consisting of a group of tents on the beach and named it Greystoke Mahale\u2014Greystoke after the titled name Edgar Rice Burroughs bestowed on his fictional character Tarzan, and Mahale after the nearby mountain range, whose forested slopes tower above the lake. Several years ago Purcell engaged two young expats from the United Kingdom\u2014Ben Jackson and Emma Campbell, both of whom had worked at Mahale and are currently based in Nairobi\u2014to help him redesign the resort.\n\nThe tents were taken down and replaced by six bandas, the traditional thatched huts of Central Africa. Each one has a sleeping area, a dressing area, a bath and a veranda on the main level. \"Mahale epitomizes barefoot bohemian luxury,\" Campbell says. Wood-frame beds are draped with mosquito netting made in Nairobi, and the bedcoverings are brightly colored cloth, one of Campbell's \"fluke finds\" at the tent-makers' souk in Cairo. \"We shopped locally as much as possible,\" Campbell notes. The baskets in the bandas were woven by Tanzanian weavers; the wire coat hangers were made in the metal market in Arusha; the safari chairs, floor mats and glass jugs come from Nairobi. Each banda has a second story, overlooking the lake, that serves as a chill-out deck. The decks, accessible by stairs, were fashioned from old wood canoes that had been used on the lake.\n\nGuests may awaken to the song of the trumpeter hornbill, the purple-crested turaco or the red-capped robin chat.\n\nJackson is not a licensed architect, but, as he says, \"I can draw,\" and he has been designing buildings in East Africa for several years now. One challenge at Greystoke Mahale was procuring lumber. \"It was important not to ravage the forests, so we used plantation-grown woods,\" Jackson says. \"The support poles are eucalyptus and coco. The floors are eucalyptus, which we planed and sawed by hand. Most of the furniture was made from the wood of old dhows that washed up on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. We used the wood for tables, shelves, veranda chairs, shower stalls and mirror frames. We kept the original dhow paint colors, so no two rooms look alike.\" Since the bandas are open to the air, guests may awaken to the song of the trumpeter hornbill, the purple-crested turaco or the red-capped robin chat.\n\nThe primary activity at Greystoke Mahale is \"chimping.\" Early each morning trackers go into the forest to get a fix on the whereabouts of the \"M\" group of about 60 chimps, who are being studied by scientists from Kyoto University and are known to staffers by name.\n\nThe chimps may be congregating in nearby trees, a 30-minute walk away, or up in the mountains, a three- or four-hour hike. Their whereabouts are radioed back to camp, and only six guests at a time are escorted on trails to see them groom, forage and squabble. Small surgical face masks are worn while in proximity to the chimps to help prevent the transmission of human germs. Also, no flashbulbs may be used; an hour is the maximum time that may be spent with them; smoking and littering are forbidden; and eating is discouraged.\n\nEating is not discouraged back at camp, where three Tanzanian chefs provide food from sunrise to long after sunset. Jackson and Campbell designed a mess-hall structure, loosely modeled on a Tongwe chief's hut, where guests may have their meals. English breakfasts, homemade muesli, tropical fruits and almost anything else for which guests ask are offered in the morning. Three different salads and assorted kebabs, frittatas and pastas are served at lunch. Afternoon tea is available, and so are \"biters\"\u2014snacks before the three-course dinners. (The lake abounds in fish, and guests may choose to catch their own ndubu, kipapa and kuhaye.) Some guests eat in the privacy of their bandas, while others have dinner on the beach at a long table illuminated by candles, lanterns and stars. Other between-chimping and -eating activities include swimming and snorkeling in Lake Tanganyika, the world's longest freshwater lake and its second deepest (after Lake Baikal in Siberia); butterfly watching; and observing the vervet monkeys, yellow baboons and red-tailed monkeys that hang out near camp.\n\nTo get to Greystoke Mahale, most guests fly to Arusha on a small chartered plane that operates only on Mondays and Thursdays and proceed by dhow for a 90-minute trip down the lake. They stay three or four nights\u2014or seven. (Africa is expensively distant from America, so most visitors combine chimping with other better-known expeditions, perhaps climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or viewing game in the Serengeti.) At Greystoke Mahale there is no standard cell phone coverage and no Wi-Fi, and most visitors hope the place will remain \"the fantasy camp\" Roland Purcell intended it to be."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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