Mama Safari | Places

Places of Kenya

Nairobi – Nairobi Hilton Hotel – Mount Kenya/Nanyuki – Sweetwaters – Samburu – Samburu Serena Safari Lodge Maasai Mara – Governor’s Camp

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Map of Kenya

Kenya lies astride the equator on the eastern coast of Africa. It is bordered in the north by Sudan and Ethiopia, in the east by Somalia, on the southeast by the Indian Ocean, on the southwest by Tanzania and to the west by Lake Victoria and Uganda.

Climate

With the Equator traversing the country, they do not have four seasons as in Europe or North America, but two rainy seasons at almost the same time of the year. The long rain is from July to October. Sunshine is experienced through most days of the year, although it becomes cooler during the months of June, July and August. Nairobi, the capital city, referred to as the city in the sun, has an average daily temperature of 70 degrees F and the coastal region is a little warmer. Samburu in the northeast is semi-arid and a bit warmer during the mid day. Maasai Mara is in the southwest of Kenya and is a bit cooler due to the higher altitude.

NAIROBI

Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya has grown from a simple Uganda Railway construction camp named “enairobe” in the Maasai Language (meaning a place of cold water–Nairobi River) to the modern center of commercial, financial, manufacturing and tourist destination in eastern Africa. Today the city population stands over 2 million. Both the Great North Road (Cairo to Cape town) and the Tran-African highway (Mombassa to Lagos) pass through the city. Most tourists to Kenya fly into Nairobi and only spend one or two nights in Nairobi, time that is often spent in shopping for gifts to take home. Places available to visit include the famous David Sheldrick Baby Elephant Orphanage (where you can get up close and personal with these adorable baby elephants) and Giraffe Manor (a giraffe sanctuary where you can get eye to eye with giraffes and have them eat out of your hand).


David Sheldrick Baby Elephant Orphanage	Giraffe Manor

Other places that are recommended are Karen Blixen Museum, the house where Karen Blixen lived (“Out of Africa” fame), Utamaduni, an upscale market craft center, and Kazuri Beads, original ceramic in Karen, Craft market.

Nairobi Hilton

While in Nairobi we stay at the Hilton Nairobi Hotel. The 287-room Hilton Nairobi enjoys a perfect location in the heart of Kenya’s capital and provides the business and leisure traveler with a superb selection of facilities. All rooms are air-conditioned and have satellite TV and electronic safe deposit boxes and locks. Each offers views of the city. The hotel boasts a choice of four restaurants and two bars, state-of-the-art meeting facilities, a fully equipped Business Centre, a modern Health Club, a pool, several stores and a bank. A complete hot and cold buffet breakfast is included.

Just outside the hotel is an arcade with several stores offering souvenirs from Tee-shirts to crystal, jewelry, and carvings (both expensive and inexpensive). Check out the items you are interested in on the first day, to see the prices and quality in order to compare with items you’ll see during our safari. When we return on our last day, you will have an opportunity to shop in the arcade and pick up any last minute items.

MOUNT KENYA/NANYUKI

On the road

Mount Kenya is the second highest mountain in Africa and the only spot in the world where snow is found on the Equator. Along the road between Nairobi and Sweetwaters we pass magnificent views of snow capped Mount Kenya across the plains, along with plantations, road side stands selling fruit, and small stores with friendly Kenyans selling souvenirs.


Mt. Kenya	Plantation along the road	Fruit stand on the road	Nanyuki marketplace

Sweetwaters

As we start our safari traveling north from Nairobi toward Samburu our first overnight stop along the way is the Sweetwaters Tented Camp located in the center of the 90,000 acre Ol Pejeta Conservancy with views of the beautiful Mount Kenya. A sheltered oasis, clustered around a waterhole and set in the pristine calm of its own private reserve, Sweetwaters Tented Camp is in a class of its own. Abounding with wildlife, unfettered by the more rigorous strictures of the Kenyan National Parks and designed to offer a charming blend of under canvas ambiance and uncompromising luxury, it has long been the preferred retreat of wilderness and safari lovers.


Sweetwaters	Rothschild giraffe bending to drink

One of only four private game reserves in Kenya, Sweetwaters excels in the provision of privileged seclusion and private game viewing. Thanks to its private status it also allows such unforgettable pleasures as night game drives, guided bush walks and both horse or camel riding across its game-teaming plains. Its popular waterhole is floodlit by night, providing excellent and secluded rarely seen game viewing.

Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary was established in cooperation with the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Jane Goodall Institute for Conservation Projects for Chimpanzees throughout the world. The sanctuary is a non-profit-making venture and the only sanctuary of its kind in Kenya. A gentle and charming diversion, it offers visitors the unique opportunity of taking a boat ride on the Ewaso Nyiro River, which flows through the center of the sanctuary where 26 orphaned chimps enjoy the peace and harmony of their 200 acre natural environment. The sanctuary is a 15 minute drive from Sweetwaters Tented Camp and a 30 minute boat ride (subject to fine weather) on the river among the chimps. The aim of the project was to set up a colony where chimps could be introduced, rehabilitated and taught to fend for themselves in an area similar to their natural living conditions. Priority is given to orphaned and abused chimps.

Sweetwaters wildlife includes: “The Big Five” (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo) plus an exciting number of other animals such as: giraffe, zebra, eland, oryx, waterbuck, Grant’s gazelle, Thompson’s gazelle, cheetah, silver-backed jackal, hartebeest and baboon. The reserve also boasts several hundred bird species, as well as a sanctuary with black and white rhinos. Other activities available include camel rides, walking safaris, as well as morning/afternoon game drives and a special night game drive.
Places of Kenya

SAMBURU/BUFFALO SPRING/SHABA NATIONAL PARK

The three reserves lie about 201 miles from Nairobi. The Uaso Nyiro River transverses the first two game reserves. The river is adequately augmented by crystal clear springs and swamps providing surface water for dry land animals and home for crocodiles and hippos. The beautiful scenery along the Uaso Nyiro River is one of the great attractions of these reserves, with a strip of riverine forest and thicket where many animals are found during the heat of the day. The reserves are famous for their great concentration of the rare species of animals found in northern Kenya, such as Grevy’s zebra, Beisa oryx, reticulated giraffe and the blue-necked Somalia ostrich. The reserves are also home to the graceful gerenuk, a long-necked gazelle found only in dry areas. Other animals commonly seen include: elephant, buffalo, cheetah, lion, impala, Grant’s gazelle, Thompson gazelle, spotted hyena and if you are lucky, you will get a glimpse of the elusive leopard. The nomadic Samburu tribe lives in this area. They are close relatives to the famous Maasai tribe.


Beisa Oryx	Reticulated giraffe	Gerenuk

Samburu Serena Safari Lodge


Samburu Serena Lodge & pool	Twin room	Dining Room Food buffet

The lodge is dedicated to the comfort of the guests, providing a modern bathroom in each room. The food is served buffet style and consists of a wide variety of excellent quality food. Set in a landscape of endless skies, dust-red plains and palm-fringed rivers, this beautiful lodge is renowned for the timeless beauty of its landscape and the serene tranquility of its setting. Nestled amidst the acacia groves that border the crocodile-filled reaches of the Uaso Nyiro River, the lodge stands center-stage to miles of lion-stalked grasslands, elephant-studded plains and wildlife-teeming bush.

MAASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE

About 170 miles west of Nairobi, Maasai Mara is part of the Serengeti ecosystem of northern Tanzania. Maasai Mara offers the best game viewing area in Africa. The Mara is rich in resident game with over 95 species recorded in the reserve. Birds are plentiful with over 480 bird species, including: secretary bird, vultures, eagles, guinea fowls, ground hornbill, kori bustards, ostrich, herons, ibis, ducks, geese, plovers, sand grouse, rollers, kingfisher and many more. There is a great variety of nearly all plains game that offer a large choice of food for the predatory lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, wild-dog, jackals and thousand’s of other carnivores. It’s a self contained world where survival of the fittest is the order of the day. The Mara River which is frequently flooded during the rains houses schools of hippo and large colonies of crocodiles.

Maasai Mara also offers an opportunity to glimpse into the lives of the proud and culturally rich Maasai people living with the same traditions as if it were a hundred years ago.


Masai Women	Masai Women	Masai Warriors

Governors’ Camp

In Maasai Mara, we stay at Governors’ Camp, one of the most famous luxury tented camps in Kenya. Governors’ Camp is nestled in the forest along the winding banks of the Mara River in the west of the world famous Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Governors Camp is the ONLY safari camp located right in the heart of the prime game viewing area. The setting is magical. So much so that almost a century ago it was reserved, exclusively, for Kenya’s colonial governors and their royal visitors. The head of the BBC Natural History Unit, which filmed the Big Cat Diary from one of The Governors Camps, described the area as, ” The prime wild life real estate in the world”.

Created in 1972, it set new standards in luxury as a tented camp, putting particular emphasis on comfort and service, complimented by the sort of good food that would have been impossible in the bygone days of the grand safari. Maintaining these unique qualities as a tradition, the camp has been refined and improved through the years. They have taken special care to preserve an atmosphere in which today’s traveler can share the same elemental landscape that inspired Hemingway and magnetized adventurers the world over.

Governors’ Camp, with its 38 tents set amongst the trees along the Mara river, also has unrivalled views over the plains and is visited and re-visited by guests who find its continued excellence, personal style and family feeling quietly reassuring. All guest facilities are under canvas and keep the authentic, traditional safari atmosphere. All guest tents have en-suite bathrooms with shower and sink, running cold and hot water as well as a flush toilet and bidet. Gas and paraffin lamps are used for lighting.

The dining area, the open fire place and the bar tent are in the center of the camp. Each morning a breakfast feast is prepared over blazing coals: mountains of bacon, eggs the way you like them, fresh milk flown-in daily, hot-baked croissants, exotic fruits, and freshly brewed Kenyan coffee. Lunch is a buffet, with roast meats, hot and cold fresh salads and approximately 10 delicious desserts. Breakfast and lunch are served in the open under the trees, and overlooking the Mara River. Before dinner, you can meet new friends, and chat with traveling companions in the bar tent or around the campfire as you enjoy cocktails. The dinner menu provides a choice of main courses and is served in the open near the traditional campfire when weather permits, and in the dining tent by candlelight when the weather is cool or rainy.

Maasai Mara’s higher altitude, makes the climate quite comfortable; cool in the evenings and mornings, and quite warm during the day.

The number and variety of animals seen in Maasai Mara makes this area unforgettable. During certain times of the year the great migration of millions of wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebras takes place. The animals cross the river from Tanzania into Kenya, following the tall grass. Hungry crocodiles await at the river, putting the zebras and wildebeest at great risk.


Zebras & Wildebeests at Waterhole	Cheetah after Kill	Lion with Zebra after Kill

There are so many gazelles, zebras, and other prey, that the predators have a large menu from which to choose.

An optional hot air balloon ride receives rave reviews. It is an adventure starting with awakening pre-dawn, crossing a river in a small boat to Little Governor’s. The balloon ride begins in the mist of the early morning, rising over the trees. It is followed with a lush bush breakfast. As you drive back to Little Governor’s for another river crossing, take this opportunity to glimpse the game on the other side of the river.


Gazelles and Hot Air Balloon

Places

Places of Kenya

Nairobi – Nairobi Hilton Hotel – Mount Kenya/Nanyuki – Sweetwaters – Samburu – Samburu Serena Safari Lodge Maasai Mara – Governor’s Camp

Map of Kenya

Climate

NAIROBI

Nairobi Hilton

MOUNT KENYA/NANYUKI

On the road

Sweetwaters

SAMBURU/BUFFALO SPRING/SHABA NATIONAL PARK

Samburu Serena Safari Lodge

MAASAI MARA NATIONAL RESERVE

Governors’ Camp

SAFARIS

PHOTO GALLERY

KENYA INFO

ANIMALS

PEOPLE

PLACES

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