The first park we visited was Samburu where we spent 2 days/2 nights. We were picked-up on time, stopped at bank and grocery store to buy supplies where we found perfect snack: Wedel chocolate (the best Polish chocolate!), and were on the road quickly for 5.5 hour drive from Nairobi to the entrance of Samburu NP. Samburu was our favorite park! We loved it. Varied and beautiful landscape with dry hills, termite and ant mounds, red soil, lush Evaso Nyiro (Ewaso Ng’iro) river, volcanic mountains in the distance, rare animals absent in other parks and not so many tourists. A lot of dust (true for all places we visited). We saw so many animals just on the way to our camp (Samburu Sentrim lodge) located at the end of the park far from the entrance. The lodge is on the river with plenty of birds and monkeys. We had lovely cottage (no hot water in the shower the first day) and open dining room was visited by vervet monkeys stealing sugar packets. Very few tourist. The staff was the nicest of all the lodges. Some other places had better amenities – this was our favorite. We had 2 afternoon and 2 morning game drives (it was hot midday). We saw beautiful Gravy’s zebras, common zebras, reticulated giraffes, oryxes, kudu, Somali ostrich and many other birds, many elephants, mating pair of lions, baboons and vervet monkeys, warthogs, impalas, Grant’s gazelles, dik-diks, gerenuks, common waterbucks, mongooses…
Ostrich, Samburu
Zebras, Samburu
Lion couple, Samburu
We were searching for leopard for hours, as Samburu is the best place to see them, but no luck. We were waiting under a tree that some people saw leopard climbing and Piotr saw it for a moment from distance among dense branches, but it didn’t come down before we had to leave. There were many goat and cattle herds grazing illegally inside the park, people fishing or even hunting crocodiles in the river (apparently for food). These activities scare most wildlife away. Unfortunately, unlike in Masai Mara, Samburu people are not engaged in tourist business and don’t benefit from it, so there is conflict of interest. Park management works to implement solutions that are successful in other places.
View from our cottage at Samburu Sentrim lodge
…our table in the dining room
Our safari van with roof up and ready to go
That is what you see from the safari van…elephants and giraffe…
We were a bit scared and stressed before traveling to Kenia because we were coming just after elections and serious unrest was a real possibility. We also worried about arranging safaris on internet with unknown companies. Fortunately, it was peaceful when we arrived, all people we met were nice and kind, and our travel arrangements worked out well. The election results were annulled while we were there and unfortunately Kenyans face more uncertain times, we will follow the events from Chicago.
We were staying with friends in Runda Nairobi. First, we recovered Piotr’s backpack from the airport: a weird case of “mistaken identity” solved thanks to our investigative skills and FB, we sent backpack we picked-up by mistake to Swedish tourist on safari, had briefing downtown for Mt Kenya trek and Meru NP safari. Crossed the city a few times, eating out and shopping. Quick introduction to the city, not much time for photos. And finally on second day we had a couple of hours for relaxing walk in Karura Forest, park just in the middle of Nairobi very close to Runda. Closed the second day with briefing with Keron Safaris and Hotels for Samburu/Ol Pejeta/Lake Nakuru/Masai Mara safari starting early morning the following day.
More on our tour operator Keron Safaris and Hotels
10 day/9 night trip from Nairobi to Samburu/Ol Pejeta/Lake Nakuru/Masai Mara with ☞ Keron Safaris and Hotels. All planning and arrangements for the trip were made by e-mail, and the process was very effective. We made the payment in Nairobi just before the trip. We chose a private tour for the flexibility of visiting places and staying longer in some parks than group tours do, and for the style of the game drives. It was good decision also because we were standing in the van most of the time during the game drives (when the roof was up). We had a lot of space and could turn around freely. It would still be OK with 4 people, but for sure not with 6 or 7, like we saw in many other safari cars.
We passed some nice landscapes on the way between the parks, Rift Valley, hills, coffee and tea plantations, villages and small towns, street/highway markets, but even with the private tour we didn’t stop and had to rushed to the next destination, although often it would be fine to arrive an hour later. Driving on Kenyan main roads is tough, but our driver Mike was very good and careful. Our safari was well organized, lodges/camps were very good, better than we expected, food was OK and safe (many choices, tasty but quite heavy and often fried). Our safari van was older, but well prepared and survived the journey without a problem. Mike did also excellent job on the bumpy roads and stream crossings, knew the parks well, spotted many animals, and showed great interest in birds. Venant, one of the owners who came along as our guide, provided assistance, but spent quite a bit of time on his phone arranging tours for other clients. He didn’t volunteer too much information, but when asked provided facts about birds and animals, and Kenya in general, but not so much about habitat, environment etc. We didn’t have a radio, but it didn’t matter at all, as Mike with help from Venant were very good deciding where to go and at finding animals and birds. We often had them to ourselves, even in the very popular Masai Mara. All the safari drivers/guides exchanged info about animals when passing and before/after the drives. In theory we had unlimited game drives, in practice we had to bargain a bit for time. In most cases we got enough – 8 -9 hours a day, with two full-day drives in Masai Mara. We were promised some before-breakfast drives and I really regret we didn’t insist more firmly on an additional early morning drive when the animals are up and most active! It didn’t help that Piotr was not too keen on getting up so early. Our Masai Mara lodge (Mara Sentrim) was not inside the reserve, as we were told it would be, and for every drive we had to go to the reserve entrance on a super bad road and through a village losing a lot of time. Before booking we had multiple discussions about it, as the lodge’s location was not so clear, and they assured us it was a better choice and definitely inside the reserve. I wanted to stay near more centrally located Talek gate rather than Sekenai gate. The lodge was very nice. As a result we spent 3 days in Masai Mara Reserve instead of 4 and could not have an early morning game drive on the last day, which was disappointing. This misrepresentation was the only negative score point. Our trip included a short visit to Maasai village (Masai Mara), a bit touristy but still interesting.
All in all the tour was very good, we had great time and saw many animals very close, everything we expected and more, except for the leopard. Venant and Mike were very friendly and easy to interact with.
We are in Doha at gate A4 waiting for our flight to Nairobi. It is a long way from Chicago to Nairobi: almost 20 hrs of flying time (9,800 miles) plus 3 hrs in Doha. All easy, just long.
More on our tour operator Keron Safaris and Hotels
