Let the Fun Begin in Laikipia!

The day had arrived! It was time to head into the bush! The plan was to have breakfast at the hotel in Nairobi and then head to the smaller airport in Nairobi reserved for safari flights. Everyone was very concerned about the dreaded 33-pound bag limit we have heard about with these bush flights. This is tough when packing for a good length of time. Plus, that weight limit includes your carry-on bag. In my carry-on, I had a ton of electronics like camera batteries, camera chargers, my camera itself, and 2 lenses. If you don’t know, camera equipment can be quite heavy. My 100mm-400mm lens for instance weighs about 10 pounds so there was a third of my weight limit right there. I had an ingenious way of combatting this limit: I wore about half the clothes I packed to leave weight in the bags for the other important things. Everything I had read about safaris mentioned how important jackets and vests with tons of pockets are due to being able to carry a lot of items with you on game drives or flights. I found a Ralph Lauren jacket and Banana Republic photojournalist vest both secondhand on Poshmark, and they were perfect. Each had a ton of pockets, but the photojournalist vest takes it to another level. I’m fairly certain I’ve yet to discover all the pockets it contains. My plan was to shove as many things in these pockets as possible. I had everything from chargers to cameras to charging cables packed on my body. The people I was with said it looked like I gained about 15 pounds because of how thick I looked. So I went through all this effort, and they never even bothered to weight any of our bags. All that for nothing. And now I had to get all the stuff out of my vest. Fairly sure I’m still toting around a few power converters with me in the numerous pockets.

Now I’ve been on some small planes in my day. Especially when flying in or out of Evansville Regional Airport (EVV). But these bush flights take it to a new level. These planes feature 12 seats for passengers, an aisle that’s maybe 8 inches wide, and ceilings so low that you have to double over just to reach your seat. Truly tiny aircrafts. Luckily, most flights are an hour or under. Plus you never have to wait for takeoff or a gate, so you’re not on them too long. The descents are swift and brief as well. Nothing like normal commercial flights where they begin their descents 20 minutes before landing and make you stow your tray table in its upright and locked position. Micato, our safari outfitter, includes cute little folders for each flight which they’ve lovingly named “airborne amusements”. These packets have a map of the area you’ll be visiting, pamphlets about local birds and other wildlife, and a trivia card. I also choose these flights as the time to write my updates for you all, so this makes the time fly by.

After one hour on the puddle jumper, we landed in Nanyuki on the Laikipia Plateau on a dirt airstrip. There was no airport building either, it’s literally just a strip of land! I’ll come to find out this is incredibly common, but at the time I was floored. We immediately hopped off and grabbed our bags from the cargo hold and were greeted with smiles, snacks, and coffees by our SUVs. Some of added “elephant milk” which is basically Bailey’s so that took the coffees to the next level. I didn’t know that this elephant milk had alcohol in it until after I downed my coffee and wondered why I had enjoyed it so much! We began our car journey into the bush! This town was actually where our guide Peter grew up!

Along the way to our hotel, we crossed through the gates into the Ol Pejeta Conservancy and took a special visit to a chimpanzee sanctuary where they are being protected and breeding them. They’re kept in a massive gated area that protected by an electric fence, but they’re so smart that they are able to sometimes get through the fence and escaping. It was nice to visit them and say hello, but then we were off again to see the real wild animals! No fences this time.

Would you believe the first animal we saw on our game drive was the rare black rhino? Well, it was! Our guide said that this had to be good luck for the rest of the trip. We drove through this conservancy on the way to our hotel which made the trip go by quicker since we were constantly on the lookout for animals! We drove up on a group of zebras (did you know the name for a group of zebras is a dazzle?), and our guide Peter gasped. He is an experience pro at spotting things so he obviously saw this much quicker than us. We all asked what he saw, and he said that one of the zebras in front of us had just given birth and that the tiny baby next to her was mere minutes old. We then all noticed that her placenta was still attached! This was truly an incredible thing to witness. The tiny calf could barely stand but attempted to take its first steps.

We watched for about 15 minutes as the baby quickly got the hand of walking and even running. Peter told us to keep an eye out for predators since the baby would never be more vulnerable than it was in that moment. The placenta had fallen off by this point, and Peter said that some kind of scavenger would no doubt eat it soon. In awe of what we had seen, we carried on. The rest of the drive included seeing a white rhino, which is much larger than the black rhino and solitary, tons of elephants, quite a few giraffes, and thousands of various gazelles, antelopes, hyenas, jackals, buffaloes, and things like that.

It was a really fun way to drive to a hotel, and eventually we had arrived at the Mutara Camp. Displaying the skulls of various large African animals like a giraffe, warthog, and Buffalo, Mutara is a series of incredible tented buildings including a reception tent, lounge tent, and restaurant tent, Mutara was unlike anywhere I had ever stayed before. Yes, these were all tents, but you never felt remotely like you were camping. It was glamping. All of these amazing facilities were in the absolute middle of nowhere on a cliff overlooking a valley and a watering hole where tons of animals visit to get their fill of water.

What’s perhaps craziest is that the entire camp had very strong wifi and instantly hot water for showers. The staff was incredibly attentive and looked after our every desire. The food and drink were absolutely excellent, and they loved planning surprises for us…

We got settled in our amazing tent and freshened up. It rained a bit which was incredibly peaceful and lulled Abi to sleep for a little nap. After our down time, we went out on another game drive around 4pm looking for big cats but were ultimately unsuccessful. Our spirits were still high though after all we had already seen. We came back to the camp to discover that the staff had planned an elaborate bonfire dinner for us completely with an open bar and buffet line. We drank and ate out by the fire under the stars and had a night that none of us will ever forget. It was perfection.

Early the next morning, we woke up and had coffee at the camp but no breakfast. We were informed that we were having breakfast in the bush. We hopped in the cars and headed to the middle of nowhere. After driving for about 15 minutes, we saw some tables set up and a buffet line. It was very awesome and super impressive that they had done this setup out in the bush. We had a lovely meal in our gorgeous setting and then headed out for our morning game drive. It was a great drive filled with all kinds of wildlife from giraffes, zebras, warthogs, elephants, and a massive white rhino that we thought was a boulder at first. The only thing that was upsetting us a bit was the lack of any big cats! We began tailoring our search more towards the big cats in hopes of seeing them. Based on what we know about big cats, during the day they prefer to stay in shaded areas likely in thicker vegetation. A leopard is most likely to be found up in trees and typically on branches that are strong enough to support them and whatever animal they brought up into the tree with them to eat. Cheetahs are active only during the day whereas the other two cats hunt at night primarily. For these reasons, we sought out locations with trees and thick bushes.

The morning drive was winding down, and we still hadn’t seen anything. We knew the leopard was by far the most elusive, but the fact we hadn’t seen any lions felt concerning. Were we just unlucky? We had been driving through the bushes for awhile to no avail. I decided to stand up and put my head out the top of the Land Cruiser for a better vantage point. After 10 minutes from my new point of view, I thought I saw something in a bush. I yelled and told the driver to stop and reverse because I thought I saw a lion. We reversed back about 10 feet. I hadn’t seen a lion. I had seen 3. All taking a nice nap together in a bush. When we pulled closer, the main female in the middle sat up and looked at us like “can I help you?”, and we snapped some photos.

It was awesome to finally see some lions! This group in the bush was comprised of 3 females, so our guide said that there was likely a male somewhere nearby. Now we had new task of searching for him. We had no luck, but we were reinvigorated from our first lion spotting. We headed back to camp where we had lunch and relaxed for a few hours before the evening game drive. Abi and I swam in the awesome infinity pool overlooking the watering hole. It was unlike any pool I’d swam in before.

If we thought the morning game drive was good, then the evening one was excellent. We saw the three lionesses from earlier but now two young males joined them in their rest in the thick bushes. The lionesses hadn’t moved far in those few hours we had been away which to me showed that they aren’t even slightly worried about their safety. The lion only fears other lions I think. I should mention that all safari SUV’s are equipped with CB radios for communication amongst drivers and guides. They can alert each other about dangers or conditions or where animals are. We had been with the lions for about 15 minutes or so when the radio alerted the driver of my vehicle about a large male with a black mane resting nearby with a lioness. We jetted over there right away, and I couldn’t believe the size of him. He was massive and terrifying with a mane of thick black hair along his back. Our guide mentioned that it was mating season so lions do the deed about every 15 minutes or so. If we waited a little bit, we would see something wild. Well, we sure did. The big male woke from his slumber and mounted the female for about 10 seconds, and then it was over. If you blinked you might have missed it. Absolutely wild to witness. Of course I took photos.

We finished our game drive and headed back to camp. Or at least we thought we were heading back to camp. To me, everything looks the same out in the bush. Without my driver and guide, I would be so beyond lost. It turns out the camp had planned a special cocktail hour with a bonfire on the side of a hill overlooking a pristine lake at sunset. It was truly incredible. One of those moments where you just stop and have to pinch yourself to realize you aren’t dreaming. We all drank our beverages and drank in the scenery. After the sun was fully down, we got back in our cars and headed back to camp. Along the way, we got a small taste of the nocturnal creatures that inhabit the conservancy. Dinner back at camp was uneventful by our new standards but still lovely. After dinner, we packed our bags because we had an early morning the following day with a direct flight to the Maasai Mara. We fell asleep dreaming of lions and leopards, giraffes and hippos. Laikipia had been wonderful, but we knew the diversity of animals in the Mara was going to blow our minds. We couldn’t wait to wake up.

That concludes our time in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Thanks to everyone at Mutara Camp for being so wonderful. Next update will be about our Maasai Mara leg of the safari! Talk very soon! Asante Sana na kwaheri!