Kenya: Fair play

Published on Friday 7 August 2009 14:14

THE driver cuts the engine, turns sharply to face us and places a finger to his lips. Minutes ago, our jeep was hurtling through the scrubby landscape of the Kenyan savannah as its human cargo chatted merrily about misplaced crushes on television wildlife presenters and attempted to remember the right words to the song Circle of Life in The Lion King. Suddenly, however, the light-hearted bonhomie has been replaced by a palpable sense of tension and excitement.

It is the third and final day of our safari in the Ol Pejeta reserve, and although we have witnessed everything from marauding black rhinos to a herd of elephants silhouetted against a backdrop of Mount Kenya at sunset, we've not yet been blessed with the sight we have all been silently (and not so silently) craving: a glimpse of one of the park's big cats. But all this is about to change. Our eyes follow the gaze of Benjamin, our guide, to a disturbance in a bush around 200 metres to the left of the track. "Cheetahs," he hisses, and instructs the driver to move us towards the action.

What follows is nothing short of amazing. As we draw closer, the indistinct tableau sharpens into a scene that would have David Attenborough himself grasping for superlatives. Prone in the thick grass, a dead zebra is providing lunch for a trio of the sleek, spotted predators. According to Benjamin, an individual cheetah does not have the wherewithal to take on a zebra – gazelles and impalas are their normal victims – so this has obviously been a group effort.

Luckily there's plenty to go around. So transfixed are the diners on their food that we are able to edge to within ten metres or so of the banquet, our jaws dropping as the cats languidly tuck into the zebra's flesh. Only occasionally do they surface for air – the gleam of contentment in their eyes as noticeable as their bloody muzzles. This is nature in the raw – and, boy, it's exciting.

I had arrived in Nairobi three days earlier, feeling slightly more cynical. Ernest Hemingway may have been a great writer, but his portrayal of Kenya has had some unfortunate side-effects. The renowned American scribe was one of the first westerners to write extensively on the African country in the 1930s, and his use of the Swahili word "safari" did much to introduce it to common English parlance. Nevertheless, Hemingway's boy's-own accounts of big-game hunting undoubtedly gave weight to the popular image of the great white hunter and opened the gates for a flood of pink-faced and pith-helmeted would-be conquistadors eager to get their kicks on the savannah.

For years, Kenya's game reserves were the domain of the privileged, with luxury camps providing a gilded experience for the lucky few while local tribesmen such as the Maasai were marginalised and displaced. These days, however, things are somewhat more egalitarian. Top-end camps still exist, but so, too, do budget and eco-friendly options. Conservation efforts and humanitarian concerns also appear to be striking a blow against naked greed. There are strict restrictions on hunting, and there's definitely a greater willingness on the part of operators and camps to plough some of the tourism bounty back into local communities.

With a 20-year-long track record, Nairobi-based Gamewatchers is one of the most respected operators in the business. And it is to its Porini Rhino Camp that we head after landing at the Nanyuki airstrip following a 40-minute flight from the capital. Packed into our 4x4, we cross the equator and head up a dusty approach road before arriving at the boundary of the reserve. Although less famous than the Maasai Mara or the Serengeti, just over the border in Tanzania, Ol Pejeta is no slouch in the wildlife stakes.

Sandwiched between snow-capped Mount Kenya and the foothills of the Aberdares, the 90,000-acre conservancy boasts all the Big Five (black rhino, leopard, elephant, buffalo and lion) as well as a ubiquitous contingent of giraffes, zebras and antelopes. These staples of the African savannah would soon become as familiar to us as a herd of cows or a flock of sheep, but on that first afternoon the jeep is obliged to rattle along at the pace of a narcoleptic snail in order to accommodate our requests for gawping time.

We eventually pull in at our camp in early afternoon, just in time for a gorgeous spread of salads, fruit and banoffee pie to be consumed in the shade of acacia trees. Afterwards, I sit at the entrance to my tent with a Tusker beer and anticipate the prospect of eyeing up some big game during the early-evening safari.

Unfortunately for us, the star feline attractions are playing hard to get, but we do get the sizeable consolation of watching a herd of elephants amble imperiously into sight just as the giant red sun goes into its death throes for the day behind the bulk of Mount Kenya. Back at base, around a campfire burning under a blanket of vivid stars, a Dutch couple reveal that their evening safari yielded a sighting of a leopard. Taking solace in the knowledge that envy is an understandable emotion, we order another round of potent gin and tonics and drown out the sound of hyenas howling in the distance with some bad jokes.

The next day an encounter with a group of black rhinos warms us up in the frigid morning air, but the next few hours are marked by frustration. At one point the tension is ratcheted up as Benjamin spots some lion tracks, but the trail runs cold. Later, at a water hole, we spot a hippo's back, but it submerges into the muddy depths before our cameras have even been drawn to shoot. Even the savannah staples are starting to pale. "Look," cries Benjamin, pointing towards an indistinct shape in the murky distance as the light starts to drain from the day. "Not another bloody impala," mutters one of my companions.

Back around the campfire after another sumptuous meal prepared by the camp's crack team of kitchen demons, we muse over the day's events. Benjamin joins us for a short while and reminds us of some home truths. "This is nature," he says. "It doesn't always put on a show." Luckily for us, the next morning it does.

After the adrenaline rush of the close encounter of the whiskered kind, some R&R on the coast is more than welcome. We spend a night in the historic Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi – the scene of one of the first uprisings against colonialism in 1922 – before arriving in steamy Mombasa.

Whereas Christianity generally holds the upper hand inland, the coastal areas of Kenya have a much more Islamic flavour due to a long trading history with Arabia. Our journey takes us through a coconut palm-shrouded landscape dotted with white mosques towards the border with Tanzania.

Long after the Tarmac road has turned to gravel past the hotels of Diani Beach, we arrive at our final destination, the Cove Retreat, just in time for sunset. One of the resort's six individual treehouses – all built around ancient baobab trees – awaits me, but for now I am content to stare out over an infinity pool to the Indian Ocean and watch the fishing boats bob across the horizon.

A waiter brings me a giant bottle of ice-cold beer. The cheetahs may have stolen the show on safari, but the Tuskers take a lot of beating at the end of another gilded African day.

Fact file: Kenya

Duncan Forgan travelled courtesy of the Kenya Tourist Board and Kuoni and the properties Porini Rhino Camp, Fairmont The Norfolk and The Cove Treehouses. Flights were courtesy of Kenya Airways and Safarilink.

Kuoni (01306 747008, www.kuoni.co.uk) offers eight nights on a tailor-made itinerary to Kenya, staying one night on bed and breakfast basis in Nairobi, two nights on full-board basis at the Porini Rhino Camp, five nights on all-inclusive at the Cove Treehouse in Mombasa, including flights with Kenya Airways from London Heathrow with transfers in resort and game drives in resort. Prices for November 2009 from 2,120 per person, based on two people sharing.