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For TAE Return Guests Who Could Identify With Our Philosophy We Recommend…
Our Neighbor in the North – Kenya
Nature knows no clear-cut borders. Tanzania therefore shares a lot of ecosystems with her northern neighbor – savannah grasslands, arid and semi-arid bushes, forests, mountains, and near desert landscapes. Kenya, like Tanzania, has a considerable land area of wildlife habitat, the climate varying from tropical along the coast to temperate and partly arid inland. But Tanzania is our home and therefore starting point and location for most of our safaris. Yet, there is a region in Kenya that offers not only rhinos, which unfortunately have been hunted to near-extinction in Tanzania, but in which we also encounter the exemplary coexistence between man and beast in a setting that equally protects the interests of human culture and tradition as those of wildlife and nature: Laikipia.
The Laikipia region is a unique wildlife area the size of Wales, stretching from the slopes of Mt. Kenya to the rim of the Great Rift Valley. It spans across 10,000 km2 and forms the core of the wider 56,000 km2 Ewaso ecosystem. Its plains stretch from the Great Rift Valley to the magnificent escarpments which descend into Kenya’s northern rangelands. Physically diverse and scenically spectacular, the area is fed by the Ewaso Nyiro and Ewaso Narok Rivers, covered by open grasslands, basalt hills and dense cedar forests. The people living here belong to the Pokot, Turkana and Il Dorobo, but mainly to the Samburu, a tribe of Nilotic origin, related to the Maasai, whose people have maintained their traditional way of life.
The land is divided into a mosaic of farms, cattle ranches and wilderness, overlooked by Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain in East Africa, popular for high altitude walking and climbing. Laikipia is the only reserve in Kenya where animal numbers have increased in recent years. Apparently half of Kenya’s black rhino as well as many white rhino live in this area! There are several admirable pro-active conservation projects, among which the rhino sanctuaries at Solio and Lewa are of particular interest. But visitors also have the opportunity to see unusual wildlife such as the Reticulated Giraffe and the Grevy Zebra. Large concentrations of elephant, plains game and some big cats roam the area, as well.
You can explore Laikipia on horseback, on camelback, on foot or by mountain biking. It is the right place to get out of the vehicle, embrace the bush and live alongside the wildlife. Activities include cultural visits, bird watching, swimming, sundowners, day game drives, bush dinner, wildlife research activities, night game drives, fly camping, climbing, botany, shopping, ranching, fishing, tennis and helicopter excursions. A selection of very high standard accommodation expects the visitor – in exclusive former ranch houses as well as tented camps. For the adventurer, there is also the possibility to sleep under the stars in the unique starbeds at Loisaba.