Jamboree is a major street in central Orange County not far from John Wayne International, the airport I fly in and out of a lot these days. When I was new to OC the history of the county wasn’t all that interesting to me, but as I got more familiar with my surroundings and came to think of them as “home” I discovered that Jamboree was named after a scouting event back in the Fifties. I was never a Boy Scout (not a very long story, but it had something to do with being raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses), but I always thought the 
outdoorsy-part of Scouting was kind of cool. Anyhow, it turns out that Scouts have gatherings they call “jamborees” and there was a big one in 1953 in Orange County, for which Jamboree Blvd. in Costa Mesa was named. I envisioned tent camps kind of like this one (above), with rows of tents along the lines of this (right). All in all, fairly Spartan accommodations.
So when I read up on our safari plans and saw that our safari lodgings were described as tent camps, I was prepared for something similar to the Boy Scout camps. Much smaller camps, of course, but still, not permanent; something easily taken down and put up again and with maybe a central temporary toilet/shower. That didn’t really bother me; I just figured we’d be roughing it for our over 2 weeks out in the bush.
The reality was different. Very different.
I was totally unprepared for electric lighting, hot showers, sinks, faucets and even flush toilets, in 
every “tent.” Calling them tents is accurate, I guess, but only in the sense that they were made of 
heavy cloth material (a type of waterproofed canvas, I think). They all had solid flooring (sometimes a concrete pad, sometimes on a raised wooden platform) with doors that lock, ceiling fans and VERY comfortable beds. They were much more like upscale hotel rooms than a Boy Scout tent camp, that’s certain!
We stayed in four different camps; two in Botswana, one in Zimbabwe and one in Zambia. Our trip was organized through OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel) and they contracted with a company named Wilderness Safari, who owned the actual camps where we stayed. Each camp was very similar, with somewhere between 8 and 10 “tents” and a central lodge where the meals were served. It was quite an experience to be out in the middle of a national park, literally 500 miles from a city, and have a white-coated chef explain our menu selection for that evening while our waiter asked if we preferred white or red wine.
That kind of “roughing it” works very nicely, thank you very much.
