The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Have you herd? Kenya’s safari camps are back in the game
The pandemic has been devastating for tourism, says Sarah Marshall, but now the country is open again – and the wildlife is waiting
T‘Bookings are rolling in. The lodge is pumping, as is the Mara in general. It’s good to be back’
wo lionesses locked eyes in the fiercest of stand-offs. Claws unsheathed, glinting in the dawn light, they were ready to battle until the bitter end. Any altercation between hungry females can be bloody and brutal – a deadly cat fight terminating all nine lives. Paws raised protectively over her kill, the dominant feline had no intention of sharing even a morsel. A few yards away, her opponent gazed longingly at the fresh meat; lying sphinx-like in the dust, she refused to budge.
For almost three hours we studied this war of silent attrition, watching for any giveaway muscular movements or twitching of whiskers. As a breeze whisked across the plains below the Oloololo Escarpment, balls of auburn oat grass started to roll across. But in a matter of seconds, with a flick of a tail, it was all over. Grooming each other, the two sisters slunk away into the bushes, escaping the oncoming heat of the day.
“It could have gone either way,” sighed my guide Tony, from Angama Mara. “That lioness, Mama Kali, is a real badass. But I suspected they knew each other. When it comes to food, even families are prepared to fight.”
Having patience is essential for good wildlife viewing. Occasionally, gambles pay off and observers are rewarded with intimate insights into animal behaviour, the things camera crews spend months trying to capture.
But the patience of guides in the Masai Mara has been tested in a very different way during the pandemic. Although Kenya’s international borders have been open since August 2020, a crash in visitor numbers caused by Covid has been catastrophic.
A study by the African Leadership University’s School of Wildlife Conservation found that tourism in wildlife areas earned Kenya US$1.03billion (£766million) in 2019, making up 1.1 per cent of GDP. Since the start of the pandemic, a government survey estimates losses of US$750 million (£557million) and almost 1.3 million jobs in the travel industry. Lodges are struggling to survive, and communities are losing vital income generated by foreigners. Across Africa, incidents of bushmeat poaching have increased as the necessities of hand-to-mouth survival kick in.
The UK Government’s recent decision to release Kenya from its crippling red list couldn’t have come at a more critical moment. Now that a reciprocal seven-day quarantine for British arrivals has been dropped, safaris are back on the agenda: vast wildlife-rich plains are open, big skies are beckoning and Africa’s blood-red life-affirming sun is shining in our direction once again.
When I visited the Masai Mara in April, several camps had chosen to stay open in the rainy season, mopping up additional revenue from lockdown refugees like me and a resident market making good use of reduced rates.
I had come to visit the new Angama Safari Camp, the first luxury solo-use mobile camp in the Mara. Building on the success of Angama Mara, its highend permanent lodge, perched on the Oloololo Escarpment overlooking the Mara Triangle, the eight-person set-up is designed to shift with seasonal wildlife and provide an authentic bush experience in wild corners where few vehicles trundle.
Although much closer to nature than other camps in the area, it is far from rough and rustic. The design features bold monochrome diamond motifs and exquisite detailing, a style co-owner Nicky Fitzgerald describes as an “Armani safari experience”. Jan Allan, from
ByDesign, has updated the colonial-era mobile camp made famous by Denys Finch Hatton 100 years ago: tents have been designed for maximum ventilation and most items are lightweight and easily packable, leaving no trace behind.
Brass fittings gleam in the bucket showers, gowns hang from polished timber rails, and soft carpets sprawl across the canvas floor. Every element has been given 100 per cent attention; even covers for solar panels (providing electricity in tents) have been beautifully sewn.
So far, four sites in the Mara Triangle Conservancy have been earmarked. During my stay, the camp was set up at Dirisha, a forest-enclosed hideaway on a bend in the Mara River. I could hear an orchestra of baritone, wheezing hippos, gurgling kassina frogs and high-pitched whistling tropical boubous. Returning nightly, a prowling female leopard was an unnerving dinner guest – but with a personal butler and 17 members of staff accompanied by park rangers, I never had anything to worry about.
Although there is a three-night minimum stay, the camps are flexible; it’s possible to book for as few as two people, and as long as slots are free, locations can be switched according to wildlife movements. This summer, the mobile camp has been following the great wildebeest migration, still crashing back and forth across the Mara’s rivers and likely to stick around for another few weeks.
“Bookings have started rolling in,” says Ryan Brown, head of marketing at Angama. “The lodge is pumping, as is the Mara in general. It feels good to be back (almost) to where we were.”
For the past few months, more Americans and Europeans have been travelling. But the gap left by an absence of British visitors has been sorely felt. “Being cut off from the UK for all these months has severely impacted on the Kenyan tourism industry,” says Gerard Beaton, director of Asilia Africa, who founded Rekero Camp in the heart of the Mara Reserve more than 20 years ago. “Local communities have been seriously impacted; reduced land leases means reduced income, many have lost their jobs and all the spin-off from a thriving tourism industry has ceased, whether it be beadwork sales or supplying local produce to the camps.”
Although Asilia, like many camps, has been operating at 40 per cent occupancy, it’s still not enough. “Camps are hanging by a thread. Most operators took loans, reduced costs and planned on riding it out for a year, but they are now running on empty.”
The impact on wildlife has been less immediate. Initially, as transport channels were blocked, there was a drop in rhino horn and elephant ivory poaching. In some respects, animals have enjoyed these months of peace: lions have given birth in abandoned camps, leopards have used empty structures to hunt, and recently there was a rare sighting of a black rhino and calf in the Mara.
But the longer-term implications are potentially devastating. “Tourism is indispensable to the future of wildlife,” says Charlie Mayhew, founder and CEO of Africa-focused charity Tusk Trust. “African governments simply don’t have the financial means to protect these areas without foreign income. If we don’t see a recovery in the near term, there’s a real risk we are going to undermine the value that is placed on these wild places. If wildlife doesn’t create revenue, people will just plough up that land and cultivate it.” Admitting it’s hard to sustain a level of urgency and crisis, Mayhew says the charity has shifted its messaging “to one of recovery and hope, as opposed to doom and gloom”.
Alice Gully from Aardvark Safaris, agrees there is now good reason to feel positive. “Africa is definitely moving. Vehicles are being used, guides are being employed, anti-poaching units are back on the ground. In some places, availability at lodges is tight. At Aardvark alone, we’ve got £8million of future bookings,” she says, highlighting the amount of revenue ready to flow back into the continent. “And we’re one of the smaller operators.”
Concerning the safety of travelling in Kenya, she insists: “Everyone in the hospitality sector has been double-jabbed and staff are put into quarantine before entering camps, so you really are safer here than in a strip of nightclubs in Ibiza with a whole load of British people.”
Guests who have already returned are having the time of their life, says Michael Dyer, founder of the Borana Conservancy in the foothills of Mount Kenya. “It’s extraordinary. People are like coiled springs; they come bouncing out. Kenyans are naturally good at entertaining people and are thrilled to welcome them.”
When I flew out of the Mara five months ago, there were no other planes in the sky. Below me, only one vehicle crossed the plains. In that moment, I felt as though I was the only person travelling in the world. But as beautiful and thrilling as it was, it is a sight I hope I will never experience again.
Although we romanticise about solitude and wilderness, it would be foolish to believe any person or place can survive in isolation – our world is too connected. As the safari industry sets out on the road to recovery, it’s important to remember these wild areas depend on us just as much as we depend on them.