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.
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!!