The honeymooners in Ralph Lauren safari chic ask which national park I'm going to. Ngorongoro? Serengeti? Neither, I say, Tarangire. They look puzzled. Either it's second rate or so exclusive they've never heard of it. And on a chilly night in the arrivals hall at Tanzania's Kilimanjaro airport, I'm not sure which is correct.
Next morning at Arusha airstrip for my flight to Tarangire, an American couple argue at the counter about the price of a cappuccino – $4 – and when workers in the coffee plantations next door earn a dollar a day, it does seem a bit rich. Nonetheless, you feel faintly embarrassed. A German gay couple ask if I know the exchange rate between Tanzanian pounds and euros. It gets all the more perplexing when an Italian couple start cooing next to me. They're lovely, but I'm starting to realise I'm in couples hell. Everyone is with someone, mostly someone they're in love with. Evidently safaris aren't made for saddo single travellers like me. Am I going to feel like a freak?
Messenga is my rescuer. He's formal and hesitant when I land at Tarangire, as we play out the ritual of the rich tourist arriving on a private plane. It's a game neither of us is comfortable with, but as we head for Oliver's Camp in a Land Rover, I'm not yet aware of the stroke of luck I've had. The quality of your guide will make or break your safari. In South Africa and Botswana, I now realise, the guides I've had – colonial types in the great white hunter mould – were competent but unexceptional. They impress Europeans and Americans as they point out a marvel you'd never spot yourself. They are trained to seek what the customer wants (everyone asks for lions) then radio ahead and deliver.
Messenga is different. He grew up in a nearby Masai village and his knowledge of the landscape comes not from books but from a lifetime of observation and devotion to his environment. Am I being misty-eyed? Maybe. But as a solo traveller, you will spend six to eight hours a day alone with your guide, and finding one who keeps you engaged and excited is extraordinary.
Tarangire can, just about, do the "big five" – the lion, elephant, leopard, rhino and buffalo – although it can't compete with the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti or Ngorongoro's volcanic landscape. But in the dry season, the permanent water in the Tarangire river attracts huge numbers of migratory animals including herds of elephant, wildebeest, zebra, eland and oryx. For Messenga though, Tarangire is not about the big five but the "beautiful five" and (his favourites) the "ugly five".
As tourists head for the big game, they miss Tarangire's real treasure – it's 550 bird species. Lilac-breasted rollers are at the top of Messenga's list. They perch on high branches, ready to hunt, all over Tarangire. The yellow-and-green bee-eater, the bar-tailed trogon and two types of honeyguides make up the rest of the beautiful five.
Travelling solo with a guide gives you the chance to set your own pace. Leopards, schlepards, I think, as the other camp vehicles chase a rumoured sighting. Mostly we dawdle, catching the kudus and hartebeests, spotting a tawny eagle, and having a giggle as a herd of zebras cross our path. I stare and stare at the giraffes, in Tarangire more docile and approachable than any I've encountered. "Mr Patrick, would you like to move on?," Messenga asks. "No, I'm OK."
We talk Tanzanian politics – a presidential election is looming. We talk safari park politics – the maintenance of wildlife reserves for rich, mostly white, tourists in a country where average incomes are just £350 a year and where pressure on land is intense. And we talk about the Masai, still holding on to their traditions.
On holiday alone, you almost automatically engage more. I learn how the country has largely avoided tribal clashes that wreck so many African nations. The ujamaa collectivism of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's first president, did little for the economy but his legacy is a uniquely national rather than tribal identity across the country.
Evening meals are the dark night of the soul for the single traveller. Couples at every other table, when your only companion is a book. But Oliver's Camp is different. Meals are taken at a single long table, and my Come Dine With Me companions come straight from central casting. A French UN official on a break from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a guy who was in charge of public health for San Francisco, doctors from North Carolina and four Seattle women in their 50s, resting after scaling Kilimanjaro. The manager of Oliver's Camp is a dead ringer for Julie Christie in the 1960s. Who needs romance?
Oliver's Camp is unfenced, a reminder of its exquisite exclusivity; it's the sole encampment within the 1,100 square mile park, permitted to exist only if animals are free to roam through it. A security guard walks you back to your tent, assuring you a lion is unlikely to pace past in the night. It's about the only time you wish you weren't alone.
But breakfast is your payoff. Silent, alone, a book lazily in hand, a fine cup of coffee, and giraffes lolloping past not more than a couple of hundred metres away. It's fantastically expensive. And worth it, at times like this.
Only once is the serenity shattered, when the next day I share a tour. "No, not that. Only want lions," barks the fat rude German when Messenga pauses for a lilac-breasted roller, while his oriental partner, at least 25 years his junior, looks on impassively. When we later find a lion, I want to feed him to it. Who needs company when you have a thousand square miles of safari park to yourself and almost the greatest concentration of wildlife on earth?
• An eight-day trip to northern Tanzania with Audley Travel (01993 838000, audleytravel.com) costs from £4,973pp, including a safari at Oliver's Camp, return flights from Heathrow, internal flights, transfers and meals
