Itinerary

Day 1: Nairobi

Students will be picked up by the group leader upon arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and transferred to the Holiday Inn Hotel for check-in.
Depending on arrival times, the group will meet that evening for dinner to get acquainted and go over the program for the exciting days ahead.
This historic hotel, formerly the Mayfair Court Hotel, opened its doors in 1940's Colonial Kenya. Since joining the Holiday Inn group the hotel has changed into a comfortable, spacious, modern hotel whilst retaining its distinctive architecture and lush gardens. Situated in a popular shopping and residential suburb close to the city centre, the Holiday Inn Nairobi offers a full range of services and facilities.

Days 2-6: Tassia Lodge, Laikipa

    0700hrs      Breakfast and transfer to Wilson Airport
      0915hrs         Depart in a scheduled flight to Lewa Downs
      1030hrs      Transfer to Tassia Lodge, your home for the next five nights.

The Laikipia region is a broad swathe of game rich grasslands and hills that reach Mount Kenya to one side and the wild deserts of the north to the other. Outside of the Maasai Mara, Laikipia can boast the greatest wildlife experiences in Kenya.
Tassia Lodge, on Lekurruki Community Conservation Ranch which borders Il Ngwesi Ranch, is the latest local community venture, completed in 2001, to help safeguard the wildlife by allowing the Maasai to reap the benefits of allowing the wildlife free haven on their land. Tassia gently sprawls over a rocky bluff with a magnificent view over the surrounding Northern Kenya plains and hills. The six double bedrooms have bathrooms en-suite and there is a kid's bunkhouse with three bunk beds and shower room. The lounge/dining area overlooks a stunning swimming pool built into the rocks. No trees were felled to create Tassia which was built entirely with local materials by the Maasai with conservation and environment foremost in mind. The area offers walking through unspoilt and uninhabited bush, climbing in the Tassia Lugga or wallowing in pools under waterfalls when the river flows following rain. The nearby Mokogodo forest is home to butterflies, birds and rare plans and for the really intrepid paragliding from the top of Ol Donyo Lossos is possible. The local Maasai will make your stay memorable with their expert knowledge of the local fauna and flora, medicinal properties of plants, tracks and spoor and local legends.
These five days will be spent participating in the local community projects like the school, clinics, ranger post and outbuildings etc. It is an unrivalled opportunity to get to interact with the local warriors and to get an insight into the little understood, traditional Maasai and Samburu customs.
Arrival
After mid morning arrival the group will enjoy an hour or two’s down time, followed by a delicious lunch- the perfect opportunity to rest and relax and build up one’s energy for the action packed four days ahead.
Tassia provides the best insider access needed to gain a feeling and experience of how life really is for the Nomadic pastoralist people of Northern Kenya. The real extent of these rich and complex these cultures are known to very few and it is a rare privilege to be able to join them in their day-to-day wanderings.
The group will spend the afternoon with Martin and Joffy, exploring the Lekurruki Conservancy. We have a good chance of encountering Elephant, buffalo, leopard along with the great host of big game that inhabit this magical spot.
Focus: Land, People and Resources
Over the course of our five days with Martin and Antonia at Tassia Lodge, our prime focus will be put on the people who live in this land and the unique relationship they have with the wildlife that live in it too.
During the 80’s and 90’s Kenya experienced a poaching epidemic that has devastated its wildlife populations, in particular, Elephant and Rhino. As awareness was created for these species’ plight, the logical remedy for this was to incorporate the tribal people into a scheme where by they benefited from the wildlife that inhabited their land by protecting them, as opposed to killing them for their horns and ivory.
Over the course of the last ten years, wildlife has gone from seeming worthless to becoming an entire livelihood. This was achieved primarily through the introduction of sustainable ecotourism into remote areas. Because of lodges like Tassia, travellers can once again experience Kenya’s wildlife and ecology the way it was prior to species becoming endangered.  Revenue generated through the lodge is channelled directly into a community trust that funds health care, education and pro-active wildlife conservation.
Our days will be spent learning about this intricate system.  We will spend a morning herding livestock with Samburu warriors out in the wildest African bush. These warriors carry spears and clubs to protect their cattle from any marauding predators and will go the entire day without eating and only a little water. Every day the warriors herd their cattle great distances to access limited water supplies in deep wells in a dry sand riverbed dug by the warriors over the course of the dry season. On arrival at these wells, the warriors strip naked and begin to sing songs of praise to their cattle as they ferry the water up a human chain and into troughs carved out of local wood.
We will also visit local “Manyattas” (Samburu villages) to interact with the elder men, women and children who stay behind whilst the warriors are away.    The social hierarchies, traditions and ceremonies that make up the daily lives of these people are unique and highly complex.
We will do a great dealing of hiking and game driving in order to search for the smaller species that can be overlooked when surrounded by big game. Kenya boasts over a thousand different bird species, not to mention the hundreds of insect, reptile, plant and tree species that make up this diverse eco- system.
Traditional hunter-gatherers had a great variety of methods to hunt and trap game.  Although tribespeople no longer hunt, warriors are still experts at making traps, smoking out bees for honey and sneaking up on unsuspecting antelope. By the end of our stay at Tassia, we too will be experts at this and will undoubtedly be able to make fire using just two small sticks.
On departing Tassia, we will make our way through a neighboring conservancy dedicated to the protection of the highly endangered black and white rhino. Lewa Downs has become famous world wide for its dedication to this plight and we stand a fantastic chance of coming across these great beasts. After a morning on Lewa our drive will take us past the snow capped Mount Kenya and onto Sweet Waters Tented Camp.

Day 7-8: Sweetwaters Tented Camp, Laikipia

After breakfast we will drive to Sweetwaters Game Sanctuary for lunch at Sweetwaters Tented Camp.
A sheltered oasis clustered around a waterhole and set in the pristine calm of its own private reserve. The 39 accommodation tents all face a waterhole in the shadows of Mount Kenya.  A cleverly hidden electric fence prevents animals entering the grounds but allows for a wonderful experience of being close to game without any danger.  The main building was originally the Ranch Manager’s house and has a cosy atmosphere.
The chimp’s sanctuary at Sweetwaters is in the wilderness but it is enclosed – roughly 15-minutes drive from the camp. The 200-acre Sanctuary is partitioned into two parts, with the river acting as a natural border between the two groups. The eastern side of the sanctuary is (one-third) is the home of the older group while the western side is the home of the younger group. The sole objective of the sanctuary is to provide a safe, secure and permanent refuge for theses chimpanzees in an environment that is as natural as possible. The Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary opened in 1993. Lonrho Africa, the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) and the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) established a facility to receive and provide sanctuary and housing to an original group of 3 chimps orphaned at a young age by the bush-meat trade. With the evacuation of the JGI facility in Bujumbura due to civil war breaking out in Burundi, the chimps were brought to Sweetwaters. In 1995, 9 older chimpanzees arrived, followed at the beginning of 1996 by 10 younger chimpanzees. Owing to the ongoing destruction of the West African rainforest and continued demand for bush-meat, Sweetwaters is compelled to continue accepting new orphaned and abused chimpanzees. The sanctuary now holds 40 chimpanzees with 16 fully qualified staff taking care of them day and night.
The highlight and reason for our brief visit to Sweet waters will be to experience the Chimpanzee orphanage. Although Chimps do not naturally occur in Kenya, this particular habitat is compatible with their general living requirements and they enjoy happy, safe lives a world away from the horrors they had previously experienced. All these primates were rescued from situations where they had been trapped and held captive throughout Central Africa. Subjected to starvation and violent abuse daily their lives were a far cry from the safety and comfort they now enjoy. Our group will spend two days learning about these wonderful, immensely intelligent primates and come away with a better knowledge and understanding of how similar they are to man.
We will explore the sanctuary on both night and day game drives. Interpretive bush walks offer the chance to learn the signs of the bush.  Horse and camel riding are also offered.

Day 9-12: Kichwa Tembo Tented Camp, Maasai Mara

After breakfast we will transfer to the Nanyuki Airstrip and take a flight down to Maasai Mara Game Reserve.  We will be taken on a game drive en route to Kichwa Tembo Camp, home for the next four nights
Overlooking the endless, game-filled grasslands of the Maasai Mara, Kichwa Tembo offers a series of spacious, stylish tents with stunning views across the world’s greatest natural wilderness. The 44 tents are a picture of rustic sophistication, with comfortable twin beds, en suite showers and shady verandah with sweeping views over the surrounding savannah. From your tent, it’s possible to see large herds of elephant, prides of big cats, and the world’s greatest wildlife spectacle – the migration of over a million wildebeest and zebra, which pass this way between July and September on their instinctive march to pastures new.
The last four days of our trip are going to be spent in the heart of the densest wild life populations on the planet. The Masai Mara is famous worldwild and our group will be fortunate enough to experience it during the great wildebeest migration. Over a million animals migrate to this part of the world for a small portion of the year in their eternal quest for food source and they bring with them the predators that in turn feed off them.
The wildlife in the Maasai Mara is abundant and the swaying grasslands ensure that animals are never out of sight. Elephants browse amongst the large herds of wildebeest and topi, eland and buffalo, Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle. The plains offer a rich variety of food for the dominant predators: lion; leopard; hyena and cheetah. In the Mara River, hippos submerge to snort and grumble while crocodiles sunbathe, mouths agape, on the riverbanks.
Our days will be non- stop exploring this vast savannah, exploring and anticipating whatever excitement lies over the next hill, be it a cheetah stalking Thompson’s Gazelle or perhaps a den of hyena with tiny pups.

Day 13

This morning a flight will take the group back up to Nairobi.  After a festive farewell supper, we will say our goodbyes and students will be driven to the international airport for their flights home.

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