
Kenya

Kenya
|
Our first two nights were spent in a mobile tented camp that paid homage to the early days of safari, only with modern amenities such as solar showers. A smiling camp staff member greeted our arrival with a silver tray full of cool eucalyptus-scented towels, a small kindness repeated every time we arrived back at camp. We settled into our canvas tent beneath the trees: inside was a romantically (and practically) placed mosquito net draped around the bed, hand-woven rugs and wooden furniture made by local craftsmen, plus a small ensuite bathroom and outdoor shower.

Elephant
We were keen to get back out into the wild, so we piled into the SUV for a late-afternoon game drive. At dusk, we gathered around a roaring bonfire for sun-downers mixed by the ever-smiling bartender, Kipsang. We ate a hearty three-course meal in the dining tent at a table scattered with wildflowers and set with Waterford crystal, then retired to our luxurious quarters. The next morning we emerged to find a pot of hot coffee outside the tent, which we drank while iridescent-blue superb starlings darted around the clearing and the bushland all around us came to life.

Africa
|
I could have stayed for weeks exploring the a 62,000-acre model of conservation, but there was just one more treat in store before we departed for the long journey home: a stay at the famous Fairmont The Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, one of the first hotels in the city that starred as a starting point for safaris. Winston Churchill and Hemingway both stayed there, soothed no doubt by the understated colonial elegance and lush tropical gardens. We ate dinner at the swanky and storied restaurant Lord Delamere Terrace, then repaired to the inner courtyard to sit and look at the stars while reminiscing about our adventures. Let’s see, we’d seen the Big Five, slept in a romantic tented camp in the bush and watched the sun rise over the Maasai Mara and set over the hills of the Laikipia Plateau. Talk about living the dream…
YOU SHOULD SEE: Our Paris travel story…
“Out of Africa” has been edited for FLARE.com; the complete story appears in the October 2009 issue of FLARE.
|