Plains & Palms

Plains & Palms (10 days / 9 nights)

Days 1 – 4: No sooner have you touched down in Nairobi than you’re airborne again, spanning the Central Highlands in the dominion of Mount Kenya. At Borana Ranch on Laikipia Plateau you’ll have three days to explore the Northern Frontier District . Cast your fly over the reflection of the craggy peaks on the silk surface of a remote mountain tarn to catch freshwater trout. Then alight on your helicopter to toast the sunset from a cliff edge, thousands of feet above sea-level. In the exclusive privacy of Laragai House, you’re likely to encounter some of the most elusive beasts – wild dog, ant-eater, honey badger, mongoose, genet cat and serval cat, as well as the prolific herds of plains game. From the fireside of your bedroom’s open-hearth, you’ll be alarmed by the croak and screech of a nearby tree-hyrax, but you’ll get used to the shriek of this peculiar creature during your stay in Kenya.

Day 4 – 7: Over the Aberdare Mountains, and into the Great Rift Valley you might see a pink cloud fluttering beneath you from the shores of Lake Elementita, home to thousands of flamingos. In the Maasai Mara, a landscape that epitomises East Africa in the popular imagination, you will witness perhaps the greatest phenomenon of creation – more than a million wildebeest and zebra migrate from the Serengeti in search of pastures green, pursued relentlessly by predators; lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena and the ominous, circling vultures. As the sole residents of Governors’ Camp, you will have an uncontested view of the hippos wallowing in the shallows of the waterhole or the elephants and their calves playing in the cool mud of the evening. The umbrella of the acacia tree is alive with beautiful birds – rare trogans and turacos and nesting hornbills. And as the sun awakes, you’ll sip crisp champagne in the basket of your hot air balloon before the heat rises.

DAY 7 – 10: As the whispering plains diminish beneath your private charter, the sweep of the Indian Ocean washes azure across the horizon. Diani beach is a swathe of ivory sand that curves like a tusk beneath you as you kite surf high above the waves. For lunch, it’s lobster in the cavernous depths of Forty-Thieves bar, only a whisper away from the shore. You could travel to Mombasa Old Town for an afternoon, an historic trading port where an exotic melee of cultural influences come together – Omani, Bantu, Portuguese and Indian; a fusion now defined as Swahili. Explore the meandering warren of narrow stone streets. Browse the antique wood carvings and wind yourself in vibrant scarves of printed cotton. On the roof terrace of your private Almanara beach-front villa, watch an ancient dhow sail in with your supper, fresh from the Indian Ocean as the sun sets the water ablaze. Before you leave, join us for a last supper in Nairobi to recount your favorite memories from the desert to the dunes and plan your return to Africa.