After an invigorating few hours of late afternoon hiking through Kenya’s Mara Naboisho Conservancy, you will have earned your sundowner drinks on a chunk of high ground with views that stretch forever. While you trekked, staff at the high-end Naboisho Camp will have driven over to the property’s fly camping site (a basic tent option, that is) to greet you with your cocktail of choice prepared right at a makeshift bar in the bush.
Picnics and sundowners can be arranged pretty much anywhere around Naboisho Camp lands. —Courtesy Naboisho Camp/Asilia Africa
All you have to do is sit back on a canvas folding chair in front of a campfire and rave about all the wildlife you just saw in their natural habitat. As the sun sets and darkness takes over, guides will share traditional Masai tales with you, as well as give you a primer on ecology in this 50,000-square-acre area just next to the famous Masai Mara game reserve.
Earlier, upon your arrival by small plane from Nairobi, wildebeest and common zebra will likely have been hanging around the dirt runway until shooed away for your descent. On the hour-plus overland drive to Naboisho Camp, guide Benjamin Kisemei will explain the rhythms of life here; for example, that there is plenty of water for resident wildebeest in the wet season when rutting begins; and, that wildebeest and zebra don’t graze the same grasses, but are companions for security.
Earlier, upon your arrival by small plane from Nairobi, wildebeest and common zebra will likely have been hanging around the dirt runway until shooed away for your descent. On the hour-plus overland drive to Naboisho Camp, guide Benjamin Kisemei will explain the rhythms of life here; for example, that there is plenty of water for resident wildebeest in the wet season when rutting begins; and, that wildebeest and zebra don’t graze the same grasses, but are companions for security.
Perfect for drinks and wildlife viewing, this deck is off the main lodge at Naboisho Camp. —Courtesy Naboisho Camp/Asilia Africa
On afternoon game drives in a Land Rover during your sojourn at Naboisho, you’ll learn to recognize bachelor pods of male impalas by their horns, and to distinguish them from Thomson’s gazelles. You’ll discover other hoofed animals like cox hartebeests, bushbucks, and topis whose black rings on their legs make it look like they’re wearing blue jeans. You’ll be amused by the tiny oxpecker birds sitting on the backs of huge water buffalo.
Benjamin will further explain that the Masai boys you see driving cattle will do so until around 6 p.m., at which time predators will come out as the cattle vacate the conservancy. Distant thunder and lightening may fill the sky on the plains, and if you’re lucky a tower of giraffes will appear silhouetted against the sunset as you head back to camp.
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