Mbeli Camp consists of simple wooden bungalows on raised stilts, with a small veranda outside where hot water is available morning and evening for washing. Whilst the rooms have no electricity, there are facilities to charge your cameras in the mess tent and the candles in the room add atmosphere, allowing you to see the beautiful firelies at night as you walk to the bush shower and long drop loo located a few metres away from each cabin.
The dining hut is also a simple affair, but the food is certainly wholesome, if not particularly varied - but the researchers keep the conversation lively and you feel as if you very much in the heart of the forest.
Why We Like It
It is the only camp in the area that allows you access to the excellent Mbeli Bai and sitting in the heart of the rainforest, fireflies often light your way from your room to the dining hut at night (but a headtorch is more useful). The raised platform and veranda of each room allows some excellent birdwatching in the canopies, sometimes notoriously difficult in the thicker forest on the ground. After having visited the bai’s or villages during the day, dinner is a fun affair, as the resident researchers at the camp, join you for a meal (and wherever possible a beer), allowing you to learn more about the wildlife found here.