Category: Safari Lodges

Ecotourism is Dead

Ecotourism is Dead

by Arusha ♥ 11 Comments

Ecotourism is dead. From the President of Tanzania, to the much more critical tourism market itself, feather beds and five gallons to flush a toilet have subsumed efficiency and sustainability. Requiescat in pace.

“Community Based Tourism Projects,” “Fair Trade,” “Shared Value Pricing,” and a ton of other phrases to champion a capitalist market in control of its morals, today those lovely little properties and projects are disappearing downwards faster than loose jeans on teen hips.

It all began when the king tried to pretend he really really cared about the slave weeding his rose garden. And it was challenged when the consumer got fed up with allocating her hard won vacation to another cause. And it was finished when the world global crisis left only the rich in the leisure travel market.

Mombo Camp, Singita Lodge, and Bilila Kempinski, are just a few examples of what works, today, in African tourism, and they are anything but ecofriendly.

I can’t think of a single successful ecotourism property that has been built anywhere in Africa in the last five years, and most that were built prior to that are on the skids. Newly built properties, and the ones that are roaringly successful today are all spas and castles. And there are several reasons why this makes good business.

The foremost is that the mid- and down- travel leisure markets are rapidly shrinking, and by necessity, becoming more and more efficient in delivering their core product: vacations. Any type of exotic or what we used to call “adventure” travel is under heightened pressure just because of how hard it is to get to them and then use them, and these (especially in Africa) were the pillars of ecotourism.

The lower market tiers shrank as all travel shrank in the massive economic downturn, but they never recovered, as the upmarket did. There’s a lot of speculation as to why this is true and if it will ever return, but right now, it’s fact. The midmarket is AWOL.

And there’s another very important reason specific to Africa.

African wilderness is under siege. By development forces like mining and urban development.

Take forests, for example. In Kenya the loss of forests has so drastically impacted in real time the potable water of urban Kenyans that recently a sizable majority of voting Kenyans supported a pretty draconian move by the government to forcibly relocate nearly 40,000 people.

Take elephants. Concerted action by world conservationists to save the elephants began in the mid 1980s. It is a success story without a rival. Not only was a catastrophic slaughter stopped, but wildlife management efforts helped accelerate the recovery.

But to what avail, from the point of view of a young African trying to make a success in the world? To the avail that his farm is being mauled, that his county roads are being destroyed and that his children on a weekend country holiday are in danger?

Take the Serengeti highway, which is just one of many industrial projects currently being plowed through previous grand reserves in order to facilitate rapidly developing industry.

And take the relaxation of environmental standards, which kept the wildernesses healthy. This week Tanzania President Kikwete ridiculed the environmental community for trying to delay mining a 300 million ton soda ash deposit which lies adjacent the Serengeti and will likely at the very least destroy the flamingo populations living on Lake Natron.

“We cannot continue to mourn about our country being poor while our minerals are lying untapped and [while] … our neighbours, Kenya, are doing the same on the other side of the lake,” he said.

Which is true, and is the reason that the Kenyan side has no birds or animals.

“At times I wonder whether those who are opposing this move are really patriotic, because it seems as if they are agents of some people we don’t know,” Kikwete said. Bulls eye.

So with a shrinking wilderness and a shrinking market for it, what to do?

Build Up. As high and expensive as you can get. Be damned the resources consumed to build Versailles! Onwards and upwards! Four Posters! Plunge Pools! Solar Cosmetics!

The upmarket has by definition been primarily interested in comfort and style rather than context. It matters, but less with the upmarket, if the Serengeti road will disrupt the great wildebeest migration. So long as there is still a feather bed at the end of track that has a wildebeest or two, it will be just fine.

Bilila Lodge in the Serengeti is not so dissimilar to an Aman Resort Indonesia or a Canyon Ranch in Arizona. Bilila is a Kempinski property, one of the oldest, most successful European grand hotel chains that exists.

I just stayed at Bilila Kempinski and was truly astounded. The lodge is very remote and made even more so by a single access road that is 35 kilometers long. That’s one impressive driveway.

The public areas resemble any wonderful western spa or upmarket golf lodge, for example, with stylish architecture, spiraling staircases, giant lounge chairs, and lots of glass. The infinity pool is spectacular. Individual rooms are magnificent and huge with tasteful accouterments and the highest quality furniture.

But here’s what really got me: wifi worked better than in any upmarket hotel or lodge I’ve stayed at anywhere, in Nairobi or Dar. The wide-screen TVs had a whole arm’s length of channels, not the 7 or 8 limited ones found in Intercontinentals and Fairmonts in Africa.

Hot water was hot and always so. The air-conditioner not only worked, but well and softly, even when it shouldn’t have (when it was cool out). The telephone by the bed could ring my wife a half world away quicker than reverse when I was in any office in Africa.

The a la carte menus seemed right out of lower Manhattan, and the food was just as good. The boutique didn’t mess around with wood server spoons, but rather trendy canvas art whose price tags usually started at five figures.

Ecotourism is dead, because … it didn’t work. It relied on the generous spirit of middle class travelers willing to donote a little bit of their vacation to a better world order.

What an absolutely laughable idea, today.

Are You a Guilty Tourist?

Are You a Guilty Tourist?

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

Tourists have always stood out in the Third World as eccentric, rich visitors. But until now they were neither resented or impugned. That may be changing.

Is it right that you as a tourist pay $1500 per day to stay at &Beyond Ngorongoro Crater Lodge when that is more than the average wage earned by a Tanzania in a year?

Sunday, a respected journalist in Kenya admitted that the publicity over Kate and William’s engagement tugs his “instinct to look at the dark side of acres and acres of land still reserved in the Kenyan countryside for the occasional pleasures of visiting monarchs and aristocrats, and the local privileged class.”

And while it’s a bit hard to tell from an email address if someone is white or black, I venture that the critical comments left after Otieno’s column were from white Kenyans and that the blacks were supportive or equivocal. More or less.

Until this year, tourism revenues in Kenya were constantly vying for the top foreign currency earnings with tea and coffee. But Kenya is growing rapidly, and manufacturing, mining and service industries look like they will all surpass tourism within just a few years.

Tourism is no longer the sacred cow it was for at least several generations.

Otieno used the publicity about Kate and William’s engagement as the vehicle to discuss the question: are the privileges given the tourist industry fair?

The royal proposal was made while the two were on holiday in Kenya.

I for one was glad to see Otieno’s column. He began politely enough but ultimately used his talent as a writer to make a very strong case. Otieno penned that “the future tribal king of the British” had stirred up a hornet’s nest in Kenya about privilege, land ownership and income inequality.

“I thought we particularly looked good out there on CNN where the local correspondent ably re-enacted a Jesus-born-in-a-manger scene complete with a muddy footpath and a humble cottage where the royal romance miraculously blossomed,” Otieno joked.

But the joke is right on. Christian charity? Christian fairness?

Do the west’s Christian values apply to the extraordinary tax breaks given &Beyond? To the ownership/management of fertile lands normally unavailable to foreigners? To the visa waivers for foreign managers to live and work in Tanzania?

The answers always used to be, Yes of course. Because the benefits to East Africa, mostly in terms of employment, were large enough. But the discrepancy has gotten bigger, not smaller, over the years.

Kenyan GNI from the UN.
Lodge STO Rates: likely effective average amount received per one night stay from one tourist.

Since &Beyond opened Crater Lodge in the late 1990s, the wealth of individual Kenyans has roughly doubled, impressive yes. But the price of Crater Lodge has increased 400%!

Now in fairness to &Beyond, not all that increase has been pocketed by its stakeholders. But in fairness to East Africans, neither is that increase justified by increased prices or taxes. The truth is somewhere in between, but it seems to me definitely skewed to Crater Lodge’s advantage.

And I think that’s what Otieno is basically referring to.

Honing in like a lasek laser Otieno writes the wealth of a foreign tourist “…symbolizes the kind of inequality and ostentation despised by a large section of the Kenyan society.”

This is only the beginning of the debate, but it’s important to expand, and the bitter voices of foreign managers that dominate the comments following Otieno’s blog are disturbing. That kind of vitriol is not going to help our “tourist cause” one iota.

It’s a real issue. Let’s deal with it.

Prices Trending Lower for 2011

Prices Trending Lower for 2011

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The weather’s been unusually rainy, but I can see through the mist to a 2011 landscape with fewer tourists on safari.

As we approach the most important annual conference for African tour companies in London next month, the news is leaking. Competition is fierce.

Budget travel has been all but wiped out. Midlevel travel is in fierce competition with a major decline in prices, and upmarket travel is contracting capacity and not increasing prices.

For the prospective traveler it looks good on two counts: (1) there will be fewer tourists, and (2) prices are stable or dropping.

For the local African tourism company, there’s going to be a lot of rolling up the sleeves and hard work. I predict more closures, merges and partnerships and a workforce that is likely to contract by another 5% before it bottoms out late next year.

The surge of travel that followed the technical end of an economic downturn is over, and vendors see this from slim forward bookings. By June of this year vendors had noticed a pullback in December holiday bookings, and pretty grim pickings for the start of the year.

This is an economic cycle at its perfection. When travelers realized the earth wasn’t coming to an end last year, those who had waited up to two years to travel all came at the same time. That’s now over, and the market is readjusting to levels that will be here for years to come.

Germany is an important source of foreign tourists to East Africa, and the German economy is doing well. So companies specializing in tourists from this area of north central Europe might even expand next year.

The other source of a smile is the coast. Sun ‘n sand holiday makers from Europe have replenished the Indian Ocean beaches. Charters were pretty full this past season and will likely stay that way next. Africa’s coast is now a nearly completely matured market that can rival coastal holidays almost anywhere else in the world, and so the value particularly for Europeans is pronounced. It’s a wonderful success story. Now, all we have to make sure is that security that Kenya and Tanzanian can provide will do the trick.

But as far as I can tell, Germany’s momentary economy strength and the East African coast are the only two positive signs in a year which otherwise looks very weak and pretty miserable.

Southern Africa’s ridiculously high exchange rates – a result of the world’s reliance on basic resources like gold in an economic downturn – are keeping prices for everything, including tourism products, ridiculously high and this will continue to depress that market.

Often budget travel does well in an economic downturn, but the problem this time is that the younger traveler no longer exists, the Asian traveler which flooded the market last year has stabilized and is decreasing, and all that’s left are pensioners with an increasing concern about their financial future.

To the extent that the midmarket doesn’t depress pricing enough, it will move down to the budget level. We see that happening right now with chain companies like Serena and Sopa providing Somak’s new customers. To the extent that the first two S-companies lack further pricing moves, they will drop customers to the bottom S.

And that’s where the stiffest competition will be next year: The midmarket. It’s where potential travelers will find the best values and where investors will have the most headaches.

The upmarket was the hardest hit when the economic downturn began in 2008, it rebounded the most in 2009, increased a wee bit again this year, and will take the hardest hit next year because its rebound was so high relative to the overall market. Although where it ends up as 2011 will be remarkably close to where it was in 2009.

The volatility of the upmarket is a result of its small size and ability to price quickly depending upon market trends. So with alarming speed &Beyond published incredible deals in early 2009, ended them with the same alacrity in 2010, and is now presenting them again for 2011.

&Beyond is the only transnational company throughout sub-Saharan and southern Africa, and so it has its feet solidly in two different mud pools. One might be sinking while the other is firm. It’s always a good company to look at for comparisons. Right now &Beyond’s pricing is getting much more aggressive in east than southern Africa, I think because of presumptions that Zimbabwe might be coming back on line and a recognition that the East African market for upmarket travel is cooling.

I’ll revisit all these general predictions with hard numbers after the November convention.

The Mara: Tipping or Tentative?

The Mara: Tipping or Tentative?

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

Oops. There goes the migration!
A recent study in Kenya has sparked enormous confusion over the long-term future of its wildlife, particularly in the Mara. But a couple things do look certain. Don’t stay outside the reserves and don’t privatize national treasures.

I hate reporting a story like this, but it’s been growing in my conscience like mold on the wall. Time to disinfect.

“Scientific studies” in Kenya just don’t carry the weight of well-funded work elsewhere in Africa, particularly in the south.

Just a few months after rains returned to East Africa late last year, the Kenya Wildlife Service mounted an animal survey that began in Amboseli. KWS concluded that as much as 83% of Amboseli’s wildlife had been lost.

Click here to see the survey. Oops. Gone? It’s been removed. But aha! I saved the paper: click here.

All sorts of bigwig organizations participated in that paper, including some that are now criticizing it.

Evidence is growing that the survey was wrong. Not long after the survey suggested that most of Amboseli’s elephant and wildebeest had died, Cynthia Moss’ ATE
group reported that “most” of the elephant were returning, although with fewer juveniles. And only a few weeks ago, one of ATE’s researchers, J. Kioko, reported that “about 1000 wildebeest have arrived in the park.”

Now, this second damming report might be just as flawed.

The report was funded by the Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and was published in the Journal of Zoology and essentially painted a catastrophic situation in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, claiming the reserve was on the brink of collapse.

The Mara Conservancy, one of the two authorities controlling the Maasai Mara, issued a stunning denial. The Conservancy called the report “false.”

The report put much of the blame on the explosion of Maasai homesteads in the “private” reserves that ring the Mara conservancies. Specifically, the report claimed there were only four homesteads in 1950 and that there are now 368. And in what I consider a gross indication of the report’s inaccuracy, it claimed there were 44 huts in 1950 and 2735 in 2003.

Homesteads, maybe, but huts are built and torn down weekly. The 1950 data wasn’t sourced, but had to come from colonial authorities, and native statistics in 1950 have been proved time and again to be grossly inaccurate.

Paula Kahumbu, Executive Director of Richard Leakey’s reputable Wildlife Direct organization, remarked as follows on one of the report’s huge claims of wildlife losses:

“For the life of me I cannot find the 95% decline in giraffe in any of the blocks – the greatest decline that I can find is in block 3 where numbers of giraffe decline from 37 to 12 individuals. That’s only a 67% decline.”

I’m not trained or blessed with enough time on my hands to wade through the competing reports to determine in any scientific fashion which are right and which are wrong.

But that’s not going to stop me from making a few conclusions that might help those of you interested in East Africa’s wildlife, or those who are considering traveling there.

First, why are things so confused? Isn’t science… science?

Yes to the second, but as the first, Kenya’s problem is unique; unique even to Tanzania, its nearest and most similar neighbor. The government of Kenya long ago divested itself of full control over a number of its wildlife reserves, including both Amboseli and the Maasai Mara, arguably the two most important ones.

These great tracks of national treasure were seconded to local authorities (Maasai county councils) who exacerbated the problem by privatizing their operations.

The federal Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) still has some authority in both areas, but the bulk of the authority, including reporting facts on a day-to-day basis, is left in private hands. Even anti-poaching patrols in the Mara are run privately, not by KWS.

And to make a terrible situation intolerable, in the last decade the Mara was divided into two separately operated reserves. One by the Narok County Council, and the other by a sister Maasai community, the Trans Mara County Council.

One of Kenya’s legendary safari guides, Allan Earnshaw, wrote recently for the East African Wild Life Society, “The root of the problem is the fact that whilst the Maasai Mara is called a National Reserve, it is in fact treated and run as a local asset by the two different local authorities.”

(Problem upon problem: I cannot link you to this article, because remarkably EAWLS does not publish anything digitally.)

But Earnshaw is right on. And it gets truly ridiculous, as is the case as I write at this moment, if you wish to visit the entire Mara (which isn’t very big, you could do it in a day), you have to pay two fees: two times $60, to cross the Serena bridge going from one half to the other.

Anti-poaching patrols and scientific study groups are similarly constricted.

Collection of tourists fees, scientific study oversight and anti-poaching are operated by private organizations, separately for the two halves of the Mara, but the building of tourist lodges is a federal decision.

So since 2005, “no fewer than 55 new camps and lodges have been built in the Mara.” In 1997, there were a mere 20 camps and lodges. Today, according to Earnshaw, “there are over 100 and counting – with a bed capacity for 4000 tourists.”

The confusion over the numbers of animals, and the numbers of tourist lodges, is because there is no single authority managing the Mara. Studies and revenue receipts contradict each other. Private companies, competing for business jobs, exaggerate their potential. There is no neutral authority overseeing all this.

This is a Ph.D study of mismanagement at the least. Can’t do that, now. But let me try to glean from this mess three simple conclusions:

The effect on the area’s wildlife by the last drought was not as bad as local “scientific” studies suggested.

It was still bad, but probably not worse than in previous droughts. And with time we’ll know this for sure, but even in this short period of time since the rains returned late last year, things look pretty good to me.

Second, game viewing is increasingly depressed outside the parks. If you want to see a lot of game, avoid the private reserves and stay inside the park.

(Necessary semantic clarification: The Maasai Mara is not a private reserve, it is composed of two separate (County Council) government reserves, but it is privately managed. But ringing the Mara as is the case with almost all parks in East Africa, are adjacent or near adjacent private lands with tourist lodges.)

&Beyond’s Klein’s Camp and the Grumeti Reserve camps outside the Serengeti are examples. Saruni, Sasaab, Elephant Watch Camp are others outside Samburu. Treetops and Kikoti outside Tarangire. Literally all the Bush ‘n Beyond camps, and Laikipia camps like Lewa Downs and Loisaba are outside parks.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t fabulous additions to a vacation with their own unique attractions. It just means if you aren’t close enough to a park to at least enter it during a day-trip, your game viewing will be depressed compared to being inside the park.

Third, privatizing management of national treasures like a wildlife park or national Park (as being considered in the U.S.) is nothing less than stupid.

It transforms good, neutral scientific studies into the components of a cost-effective business plan. It prostitutes moral authority with profit. The decline of American zoos, for instance, I place squarely on the fact that the vast majority were privatized in the 1980s and 1990s.

America, take note. Kenya’s greatest national treasure, if it is in peril, is because it was off-lifted into private hands.

Lions going extinct? Or Maasai?

Lions going extinct? Or Maasai?

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

Maasai cow laced with poison kills entire lion pride.
Richard Leakey’s excellent wildlife consortium, Wildlife Direct, said today that “Kenya’s lions are on the brink of extinction.” Exaggeration or real warning?

Probably both.

The organization’s warning followed an incident in late April where three lions were poisoned in Lemek, a private wildlife conservancy north of Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara game reserve.

Wildlife officials arrested the alleged killer, a Maasai herder, who admitted the poisoning and showed wildlife officials the powder he used. He explained that the lion had been killing his cattle.

Lion have been killing Maasai stock for aeons. And in the old days Maasai morani would spear the lion to death and that usually did the trick. Today, pesticides have replaced spears. In this case, pending chemical analysis, wildlife officials believe the poison was carbofuran – widely available in Kenya because it’s used in the cut-flower industry.

Unlike spearing the marauding lion, pesticides laid out for the intruder end up killing the whole pride, and that’s what seems to have happened in this case. In the old days, the speared (usually) male lion traumatized the pride enough that they left the area. Now, there are no lions left to leave.

Killing wildlife in Lemek is a violation of two laws: a federal law against killing lions (that allowed federal officials, the KWS, to become involved) and a business contract with tourist camps in the area.

So the alleged culprit was arrested and arraigned, but later released. Not on bail, but because “a local politician intervened on his behalf,” according to Wildlife Direct.

Don’t get too angry.

Wildlife/human conflicts are on the rise throughout Africa and I don’t believe they are being properly handled. In Kenya a number of initiatives are underway, including KWS programs to educate herders and farmers on the importance of wildlife; in Tanzania more aggressive actions are being funded by organizations like AWF to actually fence portions of farms against intruders as large as elephant.

But as human populations develop and their needs become greater, and particularly during an economic downturn and following a drought, these initiatives can actually exacerbate not solve the problem.

Lemek is an excellent example. This is too far away from the real wilderness of the Maasai Mara, an extension of a “private reserve” because of presumed tourist interests. Many of Africa’s best camps are in private reserves, but I think these private reserves have become too far out.

This is really an area that should be left to stock grazing, and what the Kenyan government and wildlife officials should realize is that trying to expand it for tourism is a bad idea. It should be developed for agriculture.

Lions should not be protected in this area. They should be confined to areas further towards and actually inside the reserve, and if motivated to move out into these areas, they should be picked up or shot by wildlife officials before such messy and uncontrollable acts of poisoning grow widespread.

Protecting them in areas like these just increases the problem.

War Against the UnWilded

War Against the UnWilded

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Up to a third of East Africa’s tourism work force is now out of a job. Until now, it didn’t take guns to send them packing.

A number of high-end, professional robberies have been reported at camps in East Africa over the last month. As in downturns in the past, many disgruntled workers turn on their former employers in a number of ways. The most common one is to become the thief that knows where the clients’ valuables are stored.

As in the past, we’re all more vigilant in instructing clients how to act if there is a hold-up. And we’re more careful where we stay. And usually, nothing happens. Thefts tend to occur in areas with less police protection, like private reserves, and on lonely roads we have to avoid.

And until Tuesday the current trend wasn’t violent, but Tuesday Tanzanian police confronted five robbers fleeing the prestigious Grumeti Reserve and shot them to death.

The media has been all over with praise for the Tanzanian cops, but frankly, I think this is bad. There’s no need to make a war against redundant workers.

According to two sources, Agence France Press and Wolfgang Thome, a reporter based in Uganda, staff at the upmarket Grumeti Reserves tipped off area police that five laid off workers were planning an inside job. Presumably it was the inside that ratted on the outside.

Police and other security operatives laid a trap for the robbers. When the robbers arrived, they were killed in a gun battle started by the police.

I’m not suggesting that our empathy for redundant workers should transform into letting them off the hook. But my experience with these guys is that they’re hungry, educated and have little interest in doing anything but stealing wallets. The Tanzanian response might just have been a bit over the top.

Note: The next day, Grumeti Reserves announced it was seeking a new head of its Tanzanian operations.

Gibbs vs. Crater Lodge

Gibbs vs. Crater Lodge

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From Johanna@

Q. We are currently scheduled to stay at Gibb’s Farm but were wondering if &Beyond’s Crater Lodge or Tree Lodge would be nicer? What is your opinion?

A. Some itineraries are designed for certain properties, and some itineraries are designed for game viewing, and all itineraries are constrained by budget and time. So it’s hard to answer you without knowing all your details, but let me try in general.

Gibb’s is located almost exactly in between Tree Lodge and Crater Lodge. Tree Lodge is in Lake Manyara, which is just south of the town of Karatu where Gibb’s is located, which is just south of the crater. So being in the middle, Gibb’s is perfectly located to visit either Lake Manyara or Ngorongoro. With the other two properties, of course, you’re limited to visiting the park in which they’re located.

And that’s the main difference between all three properties. Crater Lodge and Tree Lodge are located in reserves — in fact, while you stay there you’ll also be paying government game viewing fees. Gibb’s, on the other hand, is located on private land outside any reserve.

So why even consider Gibb’s? Price and style.

I think that Gibb’s cottages are nicer, more comfortable, more functional and more beautiful than either of the two &Beyond properties. We call them Nantucket cottages since they were styled after small beach cottages on that New England escape. And significantly, you can stay for two nights at Gibbs for the price of a single night at Crater Lodge. (It’s just a little less expensive than Tree Lodge.)

But why not consider Gibb’s. Animals.
Gibb’s is a great interlude to intense game viewing, because even while you can base yourself from here to visit Manyara or the Crater, most guests don’t. They just luxuriate in the spectacular surroundings. Many guests remark that the farm setting reminds them of being in Tuscany. There are sweeping views of the valleys surrounding Ngorongoro Crater.

But there’s no game. While at Gibb’s you mountain bike, visit the organic farm, hike, make an appointment with a Maasai masseuse or shaman, visit the nearby town and school … do all the things cultural that many safaris leave out.

Safari travelers often discount the importance of taking a deep breath on safari and just relaxing for a while. And it’s true that a well disciplined traveler can do this anywhere.. just skip a game drive, for instance. But that’s really Gibb’s main attraction, a short vegging out from the intensity of dawn game drives and sitting in a vehicle all day.

I love both Tree Lodge and Crater Lodge deeply. It comes down to a decision of price & style.

Delightful Gibb’s

Delightful Gibb’s

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It’s so damn hard to tell people they can interrupt game viewing to do other wonderful things in Africa. And when I succeed by having them stay at Gibb’s Farm, it’s something they never forget.

It wasn’t hard to get the Cleveland Zoo to dedicate two of its safari days to Gibb’s Farm, because director, Steve Taylor, and his wife, Sarah, had stayed here a year ago. Two years ago Gibb’s redid itself, and it’s spectacular.

The old farm remains, including the extensive coffee plantation and outstanding gardens. Located at the edge of the Ngorongoro rain forest, the birds and plants are incredibly beautiful.

But the new owners are trying very hard to expand its reputation as one of the most delightful places to stay between the two game parks, Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara. The forest trail into the conservation area has been expanded, wonderful partnerships with the local Tloma village and school have been established, and local experts from Maasai shaman to area educators and artists have been employed to transform what had been a beautiful way station into a destination in its own right.

I think they’ve succeeded. The new Nantucket Cottages are exceptional, each almost like a small home. The staff is really top of the line, and the food – well, after all it does come from its own garden. But the chefs have figured out some extraordinary dishes!

The full free day was filled with all sorts of activities, including a farm and garden tour, participation in the early morning bread-making, and an evening conclave with the local Maasai naturalist doctor. We even offered a dawn game drive to Lake Manyara, which allowed us to save what would normally be an entire day allocated to that, so that the stay at Gibb’s could be expanded to two days.

“I never believed a place like this could exist in Africa,” Frank Wagner said to me with utter delight. That’s what Gibb’s has become, a most delightful place!

Beautiful Sasaab

Beautiful Sasaab

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In the earliest days of African travel, visitors came to hunt. Later, they used cameras instead of guns, but animals remained the principal reason. Today travelers are more interested in a wider experience, and one that includes real R & R as well.

Animals remain the main reason an American would choose an African safari vacation. But today there is a growing interest in the peoples and cultures of the area as well, both historical and contemporary. I often think this has something to do with the incredible availability of wildlife documentaries and the growing sensitivities of our increasingly stressed planet.

But within the last few years another motivation has become to appear: just good R&R.

That’s what vacations were always intended to be. The educational component of vacations really didn’t appear until the 1960s. Many Americans traveled to Europe since the earliest parts of the last century, but rarely then did they visit museums or have cliff notes on politics and society. They normally took cruises that rarely docked or found a single splendid villa in Florence to spend a month. It was, afterall, a retreat from the pressures and demands of a working life.

The more exotic destinations like Africa were never presumed to have a spa. Boy, has that changed!

There is hardly a lodge or even tented camp in Africa, today, which doesn’t have a full-time masseuse. And as travelers became more and more enamored of such amenity, the spa has become a virtually essential ingredient of any good property. And some properties are beginning to emphasize the “retreat” to R&R and spa, above animals.

Such is the outstanding remote Kenyan lodge, Sasaab. It’s also a community based tourism project with the local Samburu, assuring a mutually beneficial success to its own investors.

Sasaab is located west of Samburu National Park, in a remote part of Laikipia on the Ewaso Nyiro River. My family safari just spent two wonderful days here. Nine gargantuan rooms with 40-foot thatched roofs and individual plunge pools were all set on a bluff above the river with fantastic views of hundreds of square miles of Laikipia. It is absoluely conceivable that you would spend four days here not leaving your own little villa. The architecture is northern African Arab, perfect for the warm climate. The public areas are all open. The food is unbelievable and the hosts, Tony and Ali Alport, become fast friends to all who enter the massive arched entry from the long bumpy road from Samburu.

The children adored the big pool, the camel rides, the visit to the Grevy’s zebra orphange, and the climb to the top of a flat rock for sundowners. We did see game, including elephant, but it seemed secodary to the relaxing if breath-taking experience. Annie spoke for all the adults in the family when she said, “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever stayed at.”

Crater Experience

Crater Experience

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Good Morning America named the crater one of the natural wonders of the world, which it is without doubt. But the fulsome experience includes much more than just this indescribable beauty.

I’ve heard several experts refer to the ancient Ngorongoro volcano as the world’s tallest structure, greater than Everest. I don’t know if this is science or valid extrapolation from the awesome mountain that remains for everyone to see, today.

Now seven smaller, six dormant volcanoes, Ngorongoro’s largest imploded caldera is the national park. The 7k drive from the gate to the viewpoint is often in deep fog, but we were fortunate as it was completely clear, the afternoon light deepening the forest colors.

The crater sits like a nearly perfectly round cup in a highland rain forest salad of towering trees draped with lianas, thick flowering bushes and radiantly green vines. Some of the most precious plants on earth, including the beautiful acacia lehai (which I call the bonsai acacia) decorate the rim. Even before we stopped at the viewpoint to peer 1800′ into the crater national park, we knew we had a glimpse of the Garden of Eden.

The next morning we descended before dawn. African dawns and sunsets are equatorially unique, and I wasn’t about to have my family miss them. The crater was still lush, with pockets of water across its veld, although drying slightly right to schedule from my last visit a few weeks before.

The caldera was packed with animals. We are at the edge of the prime season, and there were probably still 17 or 18 thousand of the peak 20,000 animals found here in February and March when the wildebeest normally calve. Most of these are wildebeest and zebra, but there are eland, hartebeest, hippo, and virtually all the predators, although at last count only one leopard. That’s because the single great yellow-barked acacia forest is dwindling fast. Each time I come, the forest is thinner.

We saw four (of the estimated 18-20) black rhino, 3 (of the estimated 9) lion families, and my favorite several (of the who knows how many) big tuskers unique to the crater. During the horrible years of poaching, some of the largest tusked elephant on earth descended for its natural protection, and they’ve remained despite the containment of poaching that now exists. The crater isn’t good elephant habitat, but it was secure, and even now they won’t leave. We saw at close range one of the great masters, his turned in tusks nearly touching the ground.

Scenery and animals are the primary component of an East African vacation, I concede. But despite my clients’ protestations, so is the lodging. I do everything possible to avoid revealing component costs, because it’s a turnoff to be sure when my potential client learns that a night at Crater Lodge can cost $1000 per person.

Is it worth it? I’m not one to err on the side of a feather bed, but I’ve learned through numerous safaris that if I just bury the costs in the overall safari, that a stay at Crater Lodge becomes one of the main highlights. It was truly for my family, young and old alike. Erin Barnard, my son’s significant other, has an expressive face that beams joy with the slightest smile. I asked her why she was smiling as she walked with Brad from her “cabin.” “This is over the top,” she exclaimed.

We guides often refer to Crater Lodge as “Maasai Versailles.” It is over the top. It is over priced. The architecture is wild and uncontained. But the staff is the finest in Africa, the food and chefs probably the finest, and there’s no question as you laze in your oversize Victorian bath above which hangs a gargantuan chandelier as you look out your floor to (18′) ceiling window over the crater, that it is the perfect complement to this “over the top” natural wonder.

Location,Location,Loc…

Location,Location,Loc…

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Successful safari days have as much to do with where you’re staying at the end of the day, as what you’ve seen on your game drives.

We spent the last two days at Hatari Lodge in Arusha National Park. Some of my clients had been with me in Kenya for 6 days and others were just joining us. I was concerned that those who had already experienced great game viewing in Kenya might be a bit disappointed with the somewhat limited game viewing of Arusha National Park, but I was wrong.

“I never expected this!” Shelly Lazarus told me. Many of my clients are repeaters, but this was Shelly’s first safari. She was traveling with Ned Grossman, and this is his third safari with me, but Ned was equally impressed.

Hatari is located contiguous with the national park, a couple hundred meters from the park gate. It sits in the towering shadow of Mt. Meru with a huge 5-acre back yard which is a grassland plains usually occupied by buffalo and giraffe. Giraffe often wander right onto the pathways of the lodge to nip the juicy tips of the beautiful fever trees that landscape the lodge grounds.

Arusha National Park is a big game wilderness which surrounds Mt. Meru, Africa’s 5th highest mountain which rises behind Arusha town. There are developed farms all around the park so it’s almost impossible to take a game drive without seeing farm houses and workers in the not-too-distant horizon.

But the park is a beautiful rain forest with many small crater lakes that always have some wonderful bird life, often hundreds of flamingoes. We happened to be there when the flamingoes were breeding, so there were thousands of them. We found the rare turacos and gorgeous colobus monkeys in the dense forests.

Many of us joke that this is “Giraffic Park” because there are so many giraffe, because there are no lions. There are leopard, although fewer and fewer, and only a few night hooting hyaena. So the park is relatively predator free, and that allows the successful animals like giraffe, buffalo and bushbuck, to prosper.

I especially like the walks that are now well established and led by decent ranger/guides. Climbers take 3 days to summit Meru, but in 4 hours you can hike through some gorgeous rain forest and then step onto the lava field around the fascinating ash cone which finally ended Meru’s rain as a volcano in 1913.

Two of my clients, Illinois farmers, George and Nancy Halley, loved the walk but admitted that coming from the flatlands the 9,000-foot elevation did make things a bit slow going at times. In contrast, recently graduated Alison Eckenhoff who lives in Boulder, Colorado, didn’t miss a breath!

But what I realized this time was that the success of these two days wasn’t just the park, it was as much where the group stayed. Hatari Lodge is a beautiful creation of Joerg and Marliese Gabriel, who took a basic somewhat forgotten property and turned it one of the finest boutique safari lodges on the circuit.

The original property was part of the 1959 John Wayne film, Hatari. It was then a simple unused farmhouse. Fifteen years later it was turned into a very simple lodge by Stephie Leach and Baron Burt von Muteus. They called it Oldonyo Orok [“Black Rock” in Maasai, referring to towering Mt. Meru]. The Arusha couple didn’t market it very well, and it could never handle more than 16 people at a time when safari groups were normally in the twenties and thirties, so it remained something of a secret escape for smaller groups.

Several good American safari companies, like EWT and Mountain Travel, used the property extensively, but it was very basic. I remember having to caution my groups at the time about the “facilities.” A group of more than 10 couldn’t sit around the little, round dining room table that was squeezed into one corner of the single tiny public room. The tiny, tiny bedrooms each had a very compact shower and toilet, that “usually” worked.

But there was a beautiful long verandah that overlooked the current “back yard”, almost always with giraffe and buffalo. And to wake up in the morning in the shadow of gigantic Mt. Meru was worth any slight inconvenience in comfort.

Marliese and Joerg changed this in the early 2000s. They built on the Hatari theme, an extremely romantic and comfortable place to come after a hard day on safari. New individual and spacious bedrooms and large bathrooms were built, somewhat Art Deco and minimalist, but marvelously engineered by Joerg. The living room and bar are long and elegant and attached to the absolutely necessary outside verandah overlooking the game-filled “back yard.” Being contiguous with the park and without fencing, the animals in Hatari’s backyard are the animals in the park.

The secret Oldonyo Orok, spectacularly located which you paid for with a bit of inconvenience, became the masterful Hatari Lodge.

This is unusual in East Africa. The better and more comfortable lodges and camps are often not in good locations, as Hatari is. Throughout the normal safari circuits the properties in the best locations tend to be the mass tourism lodges rather than the luxury boutique ones. This is because the mass tourism lodges were the first built and understandably in the best locations for game viewing.

Luxury boutique properties came much later, well after photography safaris had been established. The original mass tourism lodges didn’t need to wow clients with gourmet food and stylish bathrooms. In the old days, the adventure of coming to Africa was so compelling you were awestruck just by the fact that your toilet actually flushed! Or that you even had one!

Today, there are more than twice as many boutique safari camps and lodges like Hatari as original mass circuit ones like the Sopas and Serenas. But in the vast majority of cases they came too late to get the best locations. Hatari is an exception.

Safari Club?

Safari Club?

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Should the Mt. Kenya Safari Club be on your safari?

We are spending tonight at the Mt. Kenya Safari Club, having just completed a fantastic short Kenyan safari in the Aberdare Mountains (Aberdare Country Club & The Ark) and in Samburu (at Larsen’s Camp). For years my clients have been fiercely divided on whether the Safari Club should be included on their itinerary.

On the one hand it was always a beautiful place, a wonderful way to “catch your breath” between intensely scheduled days game viewing. And on the other, it meant you had to trade away a precious day of new adventures in the Kenyan bush for something easily had back home.

I respect that gusto but in some respects it greatly reduces an East African experience. Coming here should be much more than just a safari to see animals. East African society is one of the most interesting on earth. The skyrocketing transition of traditional life ways into the quagmire of the modern world is fascinating, and even a brief experience grows our global perspective in very important ways.

To me, Nairobi is a must, and not just as a quick overnight positioning before heading to a game park. Visiting community development projects, like the Kazuri Beads and (near the Safari Club) Nanyuki Weavers reveals a side to Kenyan life many visitors never anticipate. Rather than flying everywhere, I fervently believe you’ve got to drive at least a little, to see from the road the everyday lives of East Africans. I don’t think we should tolerate a vacation where you travel in a bubble made of your own comforts and securities.

And given these tenants of good travel, the Safari Club works masterfully into an itinerary. Its location is perfect for ending an overland safari. In a single day you can begin in a desert among traditional peoples struggling into modernity, climb through the immigrant Islamic town of Isiolo, whiz on the highway by Kenya’s largest and very successful corporate farms, visit the Nanyuki Weavers self-help project and enjoy Nanyuki town’s legendary Settlers’ Stores samosas. After all that cultural and visual overload, the free afternoon at the Safari Club is perfect!

But it seems like the Club’s current owner, Fairmont, is struggling. The new rooms are truly lovely, but the water doesn’t drain any quicker from the bathtub than before, making two baths before dinner a scheduling difficulty. The electricity was off for an hour when we arrived. And the food isn’t very good. This has always been a problem with the Safari Club, but last night my clients had to go through several knives to try to cut the steak, and the chicken looked (and one person said, tasted) like Plaster-of-Paris. To top off our dinner angst, the old piano player is still there, and just like before, he’d clear a 4th grade recital hall in a blink.

But the greatest put-off are the prices Fairmont is charging for incidentals. A bottle of water, $1 in the grocery store, is $12. A couple cocktails can top $20. A “3 Hour Nature Walk” – which you can easily do by yourself on beautiful trails – is almost $50. These aren’t prices you’d squint at in San Francisco, but hey guys, this is Kenya.

When Fairmont bought the Lonrho properties several years ago, there was great hope. And they’ve redone the Norfolk beautifully. But they’ve abandoned completely two important chinks in the safari circuit: The Ark and the Aberdare Country Club. You can’t even find these properties on the Fairmont website. This is Kenya, much more than the Safari Club.

I applaud Fairmont for trying to move Kenya forwards. I just wonder if Kenya is moving Fairmont backwards.