Il Ngwesi

The view from the banda balcony to the watering hole. The 'honeymoon suite' in which we stayed has a bed with a mosquito net that you can roll out onto the balcony for a night under the stars. And, they are spectacular there with no light noise at the horizons.

During the 10 days around Christmas we packed up our 1999 Mitsubishi Pajero 4WD and took a road trip around the central part of Kenya. The first stop was Il Ngwesi, a private Conservation and Lodge run by the Maasai in the Laikipia District. The district is a huge plateau (8000km2) north of Nairobi, reaching all the way up to Samburu National Park. Its claim to fame are the many success stories in conservation through good cooperation between local communities and ranchers. The community lands are managed in ways that respect traditional lifestyles while meeting the needs of wildlife and producing revenues from tourism. That means that large areas of land are set aside as conservation lands in which the wildlife and trees are protected and kept in its original state. The communities often build luxury lodges on these conservations and use the income to fund communal projects. The communities live on the rest of the land and graze their cattle, goats and camels there. It's a very encouraging model and we wanted to experience it live.

Lunch at the pool

Our guide David, a young man from a nearby Maasai village who had studied Tourism in Nairobi thanks to the community. All income from the Lodge goes to the Community (a collection of Maasai villages in the area). In traditional fashion, the elders decide how to spend the money, often on education in the form of scholarships, schools, etc..

Here David is showing us 'elephant chewing gum'. It's a plant that the elephants pull up and chew the roots of to suck out the sugars.  The amazing thing is the cycle doesn't stop there. The Maasai then collect these chewed roots and use them to smoke out bees from the bee hives they construct out of wood and hang in trees. More in another post....

The view from our banda. The first evening a group of elephants walked by and forested in the bushes below our balcony. You can see them in the clearing.

Elephant family walk by our banda.

Our banda, hanging on the side of the hill overlooking the savana and a watering hole. It's built with traditional materials like found wood, dried leaves and mud

Two more of the six bandas.

The view from the bathroom. No windows in this one.

The most magnificent toilet view I've ever experienced!! Spotted a giraffe during one go.

Taking a bush walk to breakfast by the river on the first morning. The ranger with rifle took the lead. We didn't encounter anything threatening, but our guide David said it was not unthinkable. During one walk the group walked into a lioness with her cubs - needless to say, not a good thing. They backed out of the situation very, very slowly and luckily got away without injury. Encountering elephants is more common, but we did not on this morning stroll.

We were definitely under observation from this giraffe.

An elephant footprint......

This one is a giraffe footprint.

Arriving at the river

Our breakfast spot overlooking the river

The perfect spot

A full breakfast in the bush!! For sure not a Maasai tradition :)

The breakfast at the lodge was not too bad either. The location was in a tree house with wonderful views of the elephants wandering through the bushes in the distance.

On the third morning we opted for a pre-breakfast hike up a neighboring mountain, again with an armed ranger and David.

The view from the mountain to the hill where the lodge is located.

David, our Maasai guide

Back at the lodge for breakfsat in the tree house. Sascha was there to greet us as she had stayed behind with a few of the women and got to see behind the scenes.