A little bit about Life Now

So, four months ago Kyle and I packed up our belongings, in to his car and moved to the Mara. With our puppy kiko, a few boxes of books, bags of clothes and a trunk of stuff to make our new home/ tent comfy for living in the bush.  

We arrived for the start of a new season at Offbeat Mara on my birthday and moved in to our new home. The camp staff were highly amused at the amount of stuff we had with us. Thankfully though, most of it was kyles! He must have about 50 pairs of shoes and a pair of shorts for every day of the month with him.

Its funny how life works in cycles. Just over 20 years ago my mum and dad were living in a tent with me and my brother, who was just a baby. We lived up in northern Kenya while my dad was doing thesis on camel’s milk. Now I have moved back to living in a tent. But happily no babies yet, just my little dog.  

My mum always used to keep a dairy of what we were up to and the funny things that happen when living n the bush away from any civilization. So it inspired me to keep a diary too, but to be able to share everything going on in my life with family and friends through a blog.

So…  we work for Offbeat safaris. http://offbeatsafaris.com Offbeat is a great little company which started off as riding safaris around laikipia, Nakuru and the Mara. 

They are still very wild riding safaris– you can have a look at the video here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9aH3DO-fck

Then the Offbeat camps were set up by Piers Winkworth. One in the Mara and one in Meru. We manage the camp in The Mara. It is such a gem, between a valley and the Olaro Orok River, that runs in to The Mara river. There are 6 luxurious tents, so its very small and personal and very comfortable ‘glamping’.

We have a team of about 25 staff to and as we are in one of the busiest game park in Africa lots of guests to look after.  So camp is always busy and filled with stories and things to deal with. We can have 22 people to stay at a go. It’s a complete echo camp that can be taken down completely with no signs of it left or impact on the environment. So we bring in al our water, food, gass fuel etc twice a month.

We constantly have animals around, usually a lion or two on the ridge inf ront of camp who call all night. Hyena’s giggling when they find a feast, Elephants and giraffe grazing in the bushes behind, crocodiles that splash around in the river below our room, buffalo grazing by the tents at night and a hippo who sneakes into camp at night for the fresh grass. During the migration we have the wildeerbeest , topi and the zebra grazing in camp all day. Occasionally a lion gets one!

The smaller creatures we share our home with are the menaces of dwarf mongoose who raid the bins after lunch, and squeak at you when you get too close, they also make their way into the room and find our chocolate supply!!

Vervit monkeys that torment out little dog kiko because she cant get up the trees to chase them.  The reedbuck that chills in the cool of the river beside our tent after lunch. There is an amazing amount of birds here, you learn to understand their calls and alarms, ive learnt to prepare for a rain storm, listening to them go crazy after lunch means rain is on its way. The Bush babies come down for bread rolls at dinner and then use our tent as a trampoline to get from one tree to the other. The safari ants, after a rain storm they always seem to make a line in the same place across the path going to our tent which we all have to leap across. There are all sorts of other creatures but I would be listing Jonathon Kindom field guide if I carried on.

So, were planning to be here for at least 2 years. I hope you enjoy the stories I share and that lots of my friends and family get a chance to come and stay in this magical place!! 

A bit too close for comfort

We had a very exciting afternoon in camp a couple of days ago. We have tea in camp at 4pm with cakes and yummy munchies and then afternoon games drives set off at 4.30. We just had one couple in camp that afternoon with more arriving later. They went off after filling their tummies with freshly baked banana bread with David one of our guides. They didn't get very far before they had already seen something that would take up the afternoons game drive.

Davids voice came on the radio "Theres a lion stalking a zebra next to room 5 and 6" "make sure no one comes over here"!!!

Kyle and I rushed down to back of house to tell the staff not to go across the river or they would interrupt it all. We grabed a car to check it out.

I was panicking about the two dogs getting involved or wanting to check out what we were all going to look at (we have kiko our little jack Russell and Pumba our bosses dog that we are looking after for a while) kyle being very cool and chilled said dont worry and they would be fine left down by the kitchen  right as we heard the shrills from the zebra as the lioness caught it we also heard kiko squeek!! Part excitement and park the noise of the zebra. I got chills down my back and ran down but saw she was fine. As soon as we found out we were coming to live in the mara with her we got a very heavy duty cage made. So we locked her up in it and went off to see what was happening. (pumba is very chilled and stays where she is told, which is exactly what a dog needs to do living out here).

We drove out and saw a zebra leg it out of the camp and drove to davids car. The lioness had left her kill so i didnt get any good pics, but you can see how close it was to the tents.

we went back to the office and our room to see if we could see it form there. Our room is about 100 feet away from the spot she killed it. we sat and watched as she came back slowly with her 5 cubs to eat the zebra. it went on all nights. getting to and from the tent was quite spooky. especially with the dogs on high alert from the smell of the lions so close.

We went our after dinner to check on what was going on. they had practically finished it and by morning all that was left was 4 feet and skull! Eaten entirely in one night.

Laikipia Highland Games

I was supposed to put this up a while ago, but as its nearly time for the next annual Highland Games i though i would just put it up anyway. This is an amazing event put together by Kuki Gallmann. It includes all the communities around the conservancy who usually fight and go to battle with each over things like who owns which cows and which bit of grazing. Etc.  So this is a time when they can all meet in a different environment and play sports together. It is attended by hundreds of people from all around Laikipia. From the richer land owners to the children from an orphanage down the road.

Embassies and ambassadors from all over the words were invites. Kyle and I had no idea quite how many would be coming and realised the security kuki was employing was actually quite important. Especially when the entire Israeli ambassadors family arrived in a convoy with 16 people including all his body guards, ironically they were staying in the furthest part of the conservancy (and not the safest) which took them an hour to get to every night, getting stuck dozens of times on their way, much to their main body guards horror. They also didnt have ANY phone signal for miles. Not the best time to be staying there when one of the biggest terrorists attacks in the country was going on (west gate).  Another security moment happened when kyle being his cheery self offered to escort the US Ambassador to his tent in the dark and rain when they arrived, jumping into the car, the driver and ambassador jumped and were a little concerned. Once in the car the driver locked it, and kyle realised there were about 6 cameras on him and a stream through to Washington DC where he was quickly fired security questions by the Ambassadors body guard.

A part from the security, the event was beautiful and colourful; flags flying around the fields, everyone came in their tribal dress and performed their traditional dances and songs for the group of spectators and visitors. My favourite image I loved is of a Samburu Warrior with tinsel and fake flowers in their hair, how times have changed from their traditional decorating of red ochre and a feather. 

I tried my best to get a photo without him noticing

And literally everyone had mobile and taking photos with it. In a place where people live on very little money and struggle to support a family, they all seem to have an up to date colour-touch screen phone that gets the onto facebook.

The Samburu

Pokot women 

The Turkana tribe dancing 

There was running and athletic races, football matches, volleyball matches, long jump, and our favourite the javelin! As most of the guys were pretty amazing spear throwers it was amazing to see how far they could throw their javelin. When the Pokot team arrived at the star f this one they must have almost doubled everyone else’s go, almost hitting the group of Italian tourists who thought it was a good idea to walk in front of the track,

Although it was very eventful and I met so many interesting I think my favourite moment was when the ‘VIP tent’, especially made up for the ‘Muzungus’.  (With reserved printed on them all and a ribbon to separate it from the rest of the croud, ) was stampeded by all the local children and families when the procession took place.  Im so glad that boundary was broken it changed the whole feel of the event. 

So happy, with her lollipop watching acrobats

We had an amazing performance by Sveva and Kukis pokot acrobats. These guys have an amazing story that I have mentioned before. 

Pokot Acrobats

The Acrobats again

The sarakasi Trust did an amazing performance of acrobats. But my favourite were the ‘slum drummers’ A bit like the ‘Stomp’ Group. They made all their drums out of things from the slums in Nairobi and created one of the best African drum sessions I have heard. They music was totally original and they looked awesome! 

The Slum Drummers

Morning Stroll in the Mara

We were heading up the hill on an early morning walk a few days ago, when we saw four lionesses in front of us walking towards Lion Ridge. We stopped and watched them as they slid into the bushes and out of sight. As we were getting to the top of the hill, we heard a lot of commotion coming from the other side of the valley where the Lionesses had disappeared into. 

The Lionesses had walked into the two new males of the Offbeat Pride; they had been lying on the rocks catching the early morning sun. There was a very noisy and brief conflict that lasted for about a minute. We watched and listened from the other side of the valley and could see the lions scrapping and running around the bushes. 

One of the females in the group has been looking after the surviving cubs from the previous Offbeat Males. The females were all quickly chased off; the two males especially targeted the female who has been with the cubs from the previous Offbeat Males. We saw her running down, off lion ridge, quickly through a heard of wildebeests and zebras and down into another valley. The other females moved to the other side of Lion ridge away from the males. It was very interesting to see the different behavior towards the individual who has still not bonded with the new males.  

Being at a height and on foot, we had the advantage of watching them interact, without them being at all influenced by our presence or the presence of a vehicle. It was a very exciting moment to watch the whole scenario take place on foot. This would not have been seen form a car! 

We carried on with our walk heading down into a valley where no roads have yet been made, so it is still very wild and beautiful.  We looked for a safe place to cross the Olare Orok River, as the rain further upstream had brought the water up. We jumped across the rocks that were above the water and headed up to a delicious breakfast that had been set up for us.

Lions in Camp

At the beginning of the season we noticed The Offbeat Pride were very dispersed. And we hadn’t seen any of our females or their cubs for a while. This being, because two new young males have kicked out our older two and taken over the pride. 

During dinner one evening in camp, we were alerted by Ken, the waiter that there was a lion sitting in the bushes behind the car, 30 metres or so behind us. The night watchman led us out to where we could watch it and work out what was going on!

With the roaring of lions getting closer and closer, the little thing was terrified; enough to come into camp and seek safety. We knew it was fleeing from the ne­­­w males who were on a mission to get rid of the previous blood line and to make the females come back into aestrous.  

We returned to our dinner discussing this predicament and the cruel realities of nature. During pudding, one of the Males came in to camp looking for the escapee, but the watchman managed to scare him away with the torch. 

We had to let nature take its course and leave them be. When we woke the next morning, the spot the cub had been laying in clearly showed it was in no good way. We heard from the watchman that the lions had come back into camp a few more times and the cub moved off into the bushes behind camp. We found its little body. It had bite marks along its back and a pierced lung. Its mother hung around for the next two days and the males came back in a number of times as well, to check that it was dead. 

We started to worry about what had happened to the prides other cubs. After talking to guides from other camps about it, we heard that some other females with cubs, the right sort of age as ours, have been seen in other parts if the conservancy. 

 About 4 days later another unexpected thing happened, our old males made an appearance again! Along with them, our females with their cubs! So as you can imagine the roaring at night is pretty cool!