Safaris in Kenya will touch and satisfy your soul
“IN THE highlands,” wrote Karen Blixen in Out of Africa, “you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”
Over the years, I too have come to know that feeling, having shared it on many occasions, and it happens only in Kenya.
The highlands Blixen was referring to are the Ngong Hills, just outside Nairobi, and the great plains of Maasailand that stretch down to meet Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. This is Hemingway’s Africa, hoisted 5 000 feet into the equatorial sky, where the climate is like the finest English summer’s day.
I can think of no better place for a safari that will touch your soul. Kenya, after all, is where safaris were born in the heyday of the big game hunters, and the Kenyans have been refining and improving the concept ever since.
Nairobi has always been regarded as the safari capital of Africa. Its Wilson Airport is the world’s busiest hub for light aircraft, with flights to all Kenya’s main safari destinations in less than an hour. No other African country boasts a greater diversity of landscapes, from the deep-frozen glaciers of Mt Kenya to the burning semi-deserts of the wild north.
The lodges I have chosen are among the finest you will find in Africa: Sosian on the Laikipia Plateau, Elephant Watch Camp in the Samburu National Reserve and Sala’s Camp in the Maasai Mara National Reserve offer a rich, intimate experience to lift your safari way beyond the norm.
All three are family run properties set in stunning locations whose total seclusion creates the feeling of living in your own exclusive African wilderness. Their design reflects the individuality of their owners who may join you for drinks or dinner to share their knowledge and passion for wildlife conservation.
Their resident guides, so important to the success of any safari, are among the best in the business. This itinerary combines the very best of Kenya: a classic East African home-stay on the Laikipia Plateau and opportunities to get to know the elephants of Samburu and to meet the big cats of the Maasai Mara.
We begin at Sosian, a 24 000acre private working ranch where 1 700 Boran cattle live cheek by jowl with Laikipia’s wildlife. Built in the 1940s, its Argentine-style hacienda was converted from a dilapidated ruin to a haven of luxury in 2002. It is the perfect introduction to upcountry Kenya, a peaceful oasis of shady verandas and trim lawns.
Formerly a fiefdom of private rangelands, the Laikipia Plateau is second only to Tsavo as Kenya’s biggest wildlife refuge.
It is home to upwards of 6 000 elephants, 250 lions and half of Africa’s endangered black rhinos.
Here you can enjoy all kinds of activities not normally permitted in national parks and reserves: horseback riding and camel safaris to bush walks, wild swimming in the Ewaso Narok River and – Sosian’s most thrilling speciality – tracking wild dogs.
Our next stop is Elephant Watch Camp in the Samburu National Reserve, named after the desert tribe of warrior nomads who still follow their herds across the surrounding rangelands.
Here live the dry country animals of northern Kenya that make Samburu special: reticulated giraffe, Grevy’s zebra and beisa oryx. All the top predators are here too. But, above all, Samburu is elephant country. A fusion of luxury bush living and Bedouin Bohemia on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River, it is run with tremendous flair by filmmaker Saba Douglas-Hamilton and her husband, Frank Pope.
Saba’s father is Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the world’s leading authority on elephant behaviour, whose charity, Save the Elephants, has its HQ a few miles downstream.
Our tour finishes in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya’s premier big game stronghold.
Come between mid-June and the end of October to witness the great Serengeti migration, the world’s most astounding wildlife spectacle when a million wildebeest and 200 000 zebras trek north from Tanzania for the dry season.
And for all the problems caused by Maasai pastoralists illegally driving thousands of cattle into the reserve after dark, I know of no other part of Africa where nevertheless big cats are so easy to observe, and that is why I have chosen Sala’s Camp for the final stop.
Sala’s enjoys the most remote location in the Mara and can accommodate up to 16 guests in seven glass-fronted tented suites, each with its own plunge pool and uninterrupted views of the Serengeti.