Travelogue

On our last day at Campi Ya Kanzi, Andre goes for a run in the bush with Pareshi. Interesting experience to try and keep up with a marathon in two and half hours type of Maasai who seems to have springs in his legs and the regularity of a metronome !

The run quickly turns into a game viewing experience when we almost bump into – and startle a group of zebra, and then run behind a pair of jackals on a dirt road for a hundred metres.

Kampi Ya Kanzi lies at the foot of the Chyulu Hills, Hemingway’s “green hills of Africa”.

During our stay, we go hiking in the Chyulu Hills and visit the Cloud Forest. We start our walks in waist-high dry grass. That golden sea heaves back and forth every time the wind blows. And then the Cloud Forest suddenly happens. Deep green against that golden ocean.  

An ancient, lush, almost Tolkienesque forest full of gnarly old trees, its floor covered in moss, with Old Man’s Beard hanging from tall branches. It has a magical, primal feel to it. The rays of sunlight which occasionally penetrate the forest illuminate it like the stained glass windows of a cathedral.

The physical explanation for the forest’s existence – that is is situated at the “dew line” and is fed by condensation from the clouds seems too mundane to be satisfactory.

Next, we visit a Maasai Manyatta (village). Only the women and children are around. The men are out tending to their cattle. And the Moran, the young warriors, live in a separate village.

I wonder what force pushes the Maasai to keep to their hard, uncompromising lifestyle when they have the alternative of employment at the Campi lodge. In the competiton between the two value systems – Maasai and “Western”, the Maasai, at least in the MWCT, seems to be winning. It’s as if humans need constraints and sacrifice to create a distinctive sense of tribal identity.

That evening, we dine with a representative of the UNDP, here to grant the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust the biannual Equator Prize, a global prize awarded to one outstanding sustainable biodiversity community initiative.

We join the celebrations the next day…

From the mine, it takes us six hours to reach Campi ya Kanzi, on a large Maasai ranch, wedged between Tsavo West National Park and Amboseli. Campi ya Kanzi (the “treasure camp” in Swahili) is the fruit of Italian conservationists, Luca and Antonella’s dream to build a partnership with the local Maasai community to help them benefit directly from the conservation of their environment and its wildlife. The result is the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, which operates an upmarket eco-game lodge in the area, the proceeds of which go to fund education, health and research programs for the local Maasai community.

Instead of killing lions, Maasai become “simba scouts” who prove their bravery by tracking lions on foot. Among other things, the fund pays out compensation for cattle killed by predators. Check them out at www.maasai.com

Campi Ya Kanzi is a unique kind of place, with a profound connection between the guests of the eco-lodge and the Maasai community. For four days, we are taken around the bush by our Maasai guide, Parashi. And we return from our adventures to be pampered at the lodge with some of the best Italian food we have ever had.

Occasionally, the connection with the local “community” can get too intimate, as when Laura has an unexpected encounter with a genet cat in our tent.