On the Laragai front porch

During a mobile camping safari, we stay at select permanent camps and lodges while our own camp moves from one wildlife area to the next. We have a very short list of properties that we consider to be the best, and we visit them often: we know the managers, local guides, and wildlife well, and our guests are guaranteed a special experience during their stay.

One of our favorites over the past few years has been Laragai House on the Borana Conservancy. We have loved observing elephants at very close range as they drink from a small water hole next to the front porch, as well as when they swim in the dam below the house – viewable from the breakfast table.

The lodging is exquisite and exclusive: whenever we stay at Laragai we take over the entire house. Visit their website here to see what the interiors are like. While we certainly spend a lot of time relaxing by the two gigantic fireplaces in the central room, we also always enjoy horseback riding, swimming, game drives, and picnics during our stay. Tennis, a visit to the owners’ farm, and a helicopter flight to fish on a Mt. Kenya lake are also often on the itinerary.

We have had excellent viewings of wild dogs and leopards, and spend a considerable amount of time with the elephants. We also track lions here: Borana is home to a huge pride monitored by the Living with Lions team. We were also excited to recently hear that the fence between Lewa Downs and Borana may soon be taken down, in order to allow movement of rhinos throughout both conservancies. With more than 600 rhinos illegally killed for their horns in 2012, rhinos need all the help they can get, and we are happy to support Borana with their efforts by staying at Laragai often.

Riding Borana

The pool at Laragai

The Borana pride of lions

Picnic dinner near the big dam

During December we spent time on safari in both Shaba and Buffalo Springs National Reserves. Located in northern Kenya along the Ewaso Ngiro River, green and full of wild flowers from recent rains and flooding, the parks can only be described as exquisite gems right now. The river is the lifeblood of this part of Samburuland, and the namesake of the area’s lion research and conservation project: the innovative, non-profit Ewaso Lions, piloted by Shivani Bhalla and Paul Thomson. We were fortunate to have Shivani and Paul over for lunch in camp one day – and to have their help finding the pride of nine lions currently inhabiting Buffalo Springs! The lions are doing well inside the protected areas, but threats to the population continue to be present on the edges and out in the community lands.

We help support Ewaso Lions and their efforts to address the threats to the lion population’s success through the Kenya Wildlife Trust. Visit the KWT website here to learn more about how you can join us in supporting the project. You can also visit the Ewaso Lions website directly here or get their latest field report here.

Here are some photos from Shaba:

The Ewaso Ngiro River in Shaba National Reserve, Kenya

Picnic breakfast by the river

2012 family portrait on Shaba termite mound

Vulturine guineafowl

The endangered Grevy’s zebra – found only in Kenya and Ethiopia

A new citizen science project has been launched by the folks at the Serengeti Lion Project and the University of Minnesota. Called “Snapshot Serengeti,” it calls on anyone with an internet connection to help identify wildlife in millions of images caught on hundreds of camera traps stationed throughout Serengeti National Park. Graduate student Ali Swanson teamed up with Zooniverse to create the project. The ultimate goal is to determine how species interact (and avoid each other) in space and time across the landscape, in order to answer fundamental questions about the community ecology of the Serengeti. More immediately, though, the project is all about getting YOU involved in some cool science by helping the researchers get through all of the images and record all of the data!

We have already spent some time on the site classifying the wildlife, and it is incredibly addictive! The website is very user-friendly and you can ask questions if you need to. You have no idea what could come up on the next image, and you feel like you are on a virtual safari in the Mara or Serengeti as you move from photo to photo. So far we have identified lions, hyenas, cheeetahs, porcupines, giraffes, gazelles, hartebeest, impalas, a zillion zebras and gnus, and even a hippo!

So wherever you are over the holidays, take a virtual trip to the Serengeti and start classifying! Who knows what you will find!

For more information, here are the links:

Snapshot Serengeti

Zooniverse

Lion Research Center

And here are a couple of news stories:

BBC Nature News (Dec 13)

Scientific American (Dec 12)

The Ngararambuni Nursery School.

The Ngararambuni Nursery School barely appears out of the thick grey volcanic dust of Mt Kilimanjaro, less than 10 miles southwest of Amboseli National Park. If you didn’t already know it was there, you would easily drive by and miss it. Yet as we get closer, we can see dozens of Maasai children aged 2-10 sitting quietly on five crooked wooden benches placed under the scant shade of a single acacia tree, all of them sort of enclosed by a low ramshackle boma (bush fence). The children watch us drive up and tumble out of our Land cruisers. We wander into the boma and join everyone under the tree, are introduced to Joyce, the head teacher, and then the quiet ends  as we are engulfed in song….

The only nursery school for miles, Ngararambuni is supported entirely by safari guests. Here, the local children learn Swahili and English, basic math, and some geography – instead of spending all of their days herding livestock. Joyce runs a very tight ship, and their time at Ngararambuni prepares the children for primary school. Although the school is minimalist in many ways, it is a true grass-roots community project, and provides what is needed for young learners facing a rapidly changing world at their doorstep.

Through Ker & Downey and The Kenya Wildlife Trust, safari profits pay for the teachers’ salaries, food, books and learning materials, and basic infrastructure and repairs. We also visit the school whenever Amboseli is on the safari itinerary. Our guests are always smitten with the show that the kids put on for us, and nobody can resist joining in the singing, dancing, and footballing.

Ngararambuni is a very special place for us and many of our guests, as Ker & Downey guides have had a relationship with the local community for over 40 years. For us it is even more personal, as this is where Solomon ole Lenkaja – our spotter and Maasai liaison – is from. Solomon was actually a teacher at the school before he came to work with us, and several of his own children now attend Ngararambuni. A respected elder in the community, Solomon is instrumental in reinforcing the connections between safari tourism, wildlife conservation, cultural traditions, and education in the area.

During our stay in the area, the nursery school is just one stop during a full day of Maasai culture and activities. We often visit the new Embaragoi Primary School (also assisted by K&D and KWT), and several of our recent guests have organized significant donations of books, games, and sports equipment to the schools. We spend time at Solomon’s house, and meet his extended family and learn all about the traditional Maasai way of life. In the afternoon, the community descends on our camp for the “Maasai Olympics,” which includes spear and club throwing competitions, tug-of-war, and running races – after everyone dons their war paint, of course! We finish the day with drinks and traditional dancing on top of the hill next to camp, and see if any of our guests can jump higher than a Maasai warrior in the shadow of Kilimanjaro.

For many of our guests this day is the most meaningful of their safari: we are looking forward to sharing this experience with a new family on Christmas Eve!

-Nairobi, Kenya.     Stephanie has embarked on her new science writing career with a story on Nairobi’s suburban lions, four of which were captured on our property! You can read it here.

– Amboseli, Kenya.

We are thrilled to share some good news – the arrival of 6 new lion cubs to the Kitirua Conservancy! We found these little guys and four lionesses hanging out near the Kitirua Hill on the border of Amboseli National Park. About 2 months old, and probably from two litters, these cubs represent the next generation of lions in the area. Their pride territory includes part of the park, the conservancy, and additional bits of the Maasai group ranches. According to our friends at Lion Guardians, who are monitoring the lions in the ecosystem, there has been quite a cub boom over the last 6 months. If most of the cubs survive to adulthood we could see a doubling of the lion population over the next two to three years!

Unfortunately, two of the lionesses in this pride have been killing livestock recently, and retaliation by the local Maasai community is a big threat to the survival of not just the cubs but the pride as a whole. We are very grateful to Lion Guardians for keeping track of the conflicts and lions in the area, and are supporting their efforts to conserve the lions and minimize conflict. Our guests have been fortunate to spend quite a bit of time with our local Lion Guardian, Metito, and Steph will soon write about a morning she and the kids spent with Metito, 4 lions, and 13 hyenas!

We will post updates when we see the cubs again, hopefully on our next visit to the area in September.

The leopard before the baboons came along…

– Masai Mara, Kenya.    The usual suspects in the Masai Mara include the great migration of over a million wildebeest and zebra, impressive male lions roaring across the plains, and groups of elephants munching their way through the savanna and woodland. But we have also learned over the years to always expect the unexpected….and on a recent trip to the Mara my guests were fortunate to have front row seats to an unusual and thrilling altercation between a troop of baboons and a leopard.

When we first arrived on the scene there was a stunning female leopard scanning the area from a tree, and a second, smaller leopard – perhaps the female’s son – on the ground near the base of the tree. The second leopard then climbed into the tree. The female then spied a troop of baboons headed towards the tree and she made her way down. But the young male stayed in the tree….

Being mobbed by 10 baboons!

The baboons arrived at the tree and ten immediately climbed up and started to mob the leopard!  There were snarls and growls from the leopard and the baboons were wahoo-barking and shaking branches. The leopard was cornered out on a small limb at least 30 ft up from the ground. The standoff lasted for at least 20 min and the baboons got to within about five feet of the leopard.

Lucky for the leopard it was starting to get dark, and the babs seemed to decide to move on to a different sleeping tree. The leopard just stayed in the tree as we then turned away to head back to camp for the night. The Mara never disappoints, and you just never know what you will see when on safari there.

Photos courtesy of Dave Simpson.

At the finish

– Laikipia, Kenya.

On June 30th Steph and I completed the Lewa half marathon. Held within the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, this annual race is considered one of the toughest marathon and half marathon courses on the planet. This was only my second half marathon, and was Steph’s first – and she did it just 10 months after her back surgery! We ran together and were very happy to finish the race in 2:10:10. Amazingly, the winner of the half marathon ran the 21km in exactly HALF the time it took for us to complete the race! It was very humbling seeing some of Kenya’s great runners at the starting line, but the atmosphere and the landscape were amazing and made it all worthwhile. The first 10km flew by. The seemingly endless hills between kilometers 13 and 16 were challenging, and the last 5km felt like 15….but we finished with a strong 100m sprint across the finish line.

Flying over the start and finish lines

The race is actually a huge fundraising event for Lewa and the Northern Rangelands Trust, with money going to a number of conservation and education projects in the area. We hope to organize a team and run it again next year, unless we are too busy with safaris!

The starting line

Helicopter surveillance for the race

On the run….

The finish line!

The rhino protection team from Lewa and Borana at the sarting line. They ran the half in army boots, carrying 35lb packs and guns!

-Nairobi, Kenya.

The Kenya Wildlife Trust has just posted their July newsletter on their website. I serve as chairman of the Board of Trustees at KWT, and many of my guests have contributed to wildlife conservation and education projects through the trust in recent years. Right now I am particularly focused on raising desperately needed funds for higher education scholarships and carnivore research and conservation. This safari season we have already been out tracking Amboseli’s lions with the Lion Guardians and have had a wonderful ‘hyena talk’ from the Mara Hyena Project researchers. Enjoy the newsletter and please consider supporting some of the current projects!

– Nairobi, Kenya

Just a quick note – this afternoon Steph and I are headed up to Lewa Downs, where we will be running the Safaricom half marathon tomorrow morning. This is a charity event, supporting conservation and education projects in Laikipia and northern Kenya. We will post a recap once we have recovered!