Ice skating in Nairobi

Nairobi's very own ice rink

Went ice-skating with the kids today... in Nairobi (again)!! 

I've blogged about the place before but I still can't quite figure out how an ice-rink can sit on the second floor of a building without the weight of the ice causing it to crash down to earth.  I think that the Panari Ski centre/hotel skating rink (tried to put a link here but apparently the website was dodgy) has definitely put its prices down recently.  Today it only cost 350/- per child and that includes boot hire.  I could have sworn that last time it was nearer 800/- (adult price).  I was pleasantly surprised.  It's generally pretty quiet there and you often get the rink almost entirely to yourselves.  The ice rink is solar powered too, which is pretty cool.

When the kids unfailing start chanting every single holidays that they want to go ice skating, I try to put them off.  My default answer tends to be; 'no'.  It's the white knuckle drive down Mombasa road that is a disincentive for me.  Plus there's the fear of terrible injury - children getting their fingers sliced off from passing skaters, a kamikaze small child who takes you or your child out, crippling you for life (a friend recently damaged her knee badly in exactly this type of scenario).  Last time we went, a small boy fell spectacularly and got the most enormous bruise on his head, topped off by a small cut.   My daughter once nearly got garroted by the safety bar.

Fortunately today's visit went smoothly.  It was a children's birthday party, so I couldn't say no and I'm happy to report that the experienced was great!  The kids have these little penguins or bars that closely resemble a zimmer frame, to help them balance and they do work a treat.  While we were all on the ice, with around 25 children of ages 5 and up skidding around like Bambi on skates, a couple of things struck me.

1.  It's probably a point of survival to teach your child to skate.  As a parent, train them to skate (it should only take a handful of visits), then one day when they are older and they want to go with friends (without their Mum or Dad) you can be fairly confident that they have the skill set required and your job is done.  You won't be handing the survival of your child over to an unwitting fellow parent or worse, no parent at all. 

2.  Suggest that kids wear gloves (if you own such a thing living in Nairobi that is?!).  Our 'soft' children who are used to year round sunshine soon found that it's much more pleasant to put a covered hand on the ice than a bare one and started improvising by using socks on hands.  Jeans are also a good idea, as are long sleeves.  Sweaters are not obligatory, it's not really that cold...

3.  It's a very good thing that we are only allowed to skate for one hour.  Why? Because the first half an hour is spent with people feeling a bit shaky and uncertain clinging to the sides.  During the following 15 minutes, you build confidence.  The last 15 minutes and skaters are downright cocky.  It's definitely time to GET OFF THE ICE!

4.  Apart from obviously carrying a full scale medical kit, also carry drinks and biscuits in the car for the long journey home - children are invariably exhausted, thirsty and starving all at the same time..  It softens the blow of sitting in obligatory traffic on the queue up to Stadium roundabout.

Panari Sky Centre

Useful info: 

The rink opens at 11am, the runs one hour sessions with a break of one hour in between.  So 11am-12pm, then 1-2pm etc right up until 9-10pm.

Ice hockey - Wednesday evenings and sunday mornings.... not that I'm going of course!!

Boarding school and traffic - in Kenya

Peace and quiet

I had the most surreal experience yesterday.  We had a night where there were no kids in the house!! (They were off at holiday camps and sleep-overs).  After all these years (11), it felt completely bizarre and I have to admit, rather nice.  I sat for 24 hours in blissful quiet.  The sun was shining.  I ate breakfast alone.  The house was tidy.  I felt like I was living in a hotel!

There were no requests for this or that, no complaining of feeling 'bored', I didn't find myself cajoling or nagging my 6, 8 and 11 year old kids to do homework or chores, no shouting (we do a lot of that in this family).  Having let freedom go to my head, I subsequently ruined it by having a blazing row with my husband over who was going to make the supper.  He was then furious and green with envy that he had to set his alarm to get up early for work while I had the whole house to myself for another few golden hours.

There's a very compelling advertising campaign at the moment for a well known private boarding school in Kenya.  There are banks of posters attached to lighting poles all over Nairobi that have straplines such as,

"why sit in traffic? Let your child do something more interesting."

Laid out underneath is a photo of a uniformed child reading a book, or practising a musical instrument, or playing sport - ...at boarding school of course.

Traditionally the school in question has been full of the children of farming families or people living in remote areas without access to good schooling but this has recently changed.  Since the traffic is indeed so bad and getting worse in Nairobi, the campaign is actually working.  Quite a few Nairobi parents that I know, in spite of having a choice of at least half a dozen fantastic private schools in town, have recently decided to move their kids there, shifting from day school to the boarding system.  When I ask why, they invariably say,

"Because poor precious soandso sits in traffic for an hour and a half each day at least going to and from school!  So we thought it would be for the best for our child." 

Even after hellish revision with children recently and endless arduous school runs, plays and performances etc. it's generally on the tip of my tongue to say,

"But how does a boarding school replace daily hands-on parenting, traffic notwithstanding?!?!?"

(I feel in a position to say this since I boarded in England from the age of seven to seventeen.)

However, after my blissfully quiet 24 hours - I can quite see how boarding school might be a tempting option.  Apart from the fact that I'd almost inevitably end up rowing with my husband...Grr!

Contraversial blog posts! Sarara Camp

I feel like banging my head against a brick wall here - but, like a dog with a bone, I'm afraid I'm not letting this go. 

My Sarara Camp post elicited a slew of racially motivated comments when I alluded to the fact that the camp had been 'given' to the local community and top paying foreign tourists were, in some way, 'donating' to the local community by staying there.  "AHHHHHH - I hear you all scream again!"

HOWEVER, I'm blocking my ears and carrying on.  The truth is, (in spite of the fact that any publicity is good publicity) I really feel I have done the camp a disservice by not expressing properly what it is going on vis-a-vis them and community conservation in Northern Kenya.  I apologise for that and I know that your bug-bear is not with the camp but with how I explained what they do...So I am now going to expand so that EVERYBODY understands the point that I tried putting across so clumsily in my previous post. 

Yes, I am an outsider to Kenya, a foreigner, but I'm just laying it out as I see it I'm afraid.  I think this further explanation is an exercise worth doing because there are amazing things going on up in Northern Kenya and very few people actually know about it. 

I do ask any of the pervious 'Anonymous' nay-sayers to read this post and comment again if there are any further questions, so that together we can have a full understanding here.

Background to the Mathews Range area - a bloody history

In the early 1970s, the Mathews Range was absolutely full of game.  The perfect environment for elephant and rhino among other animals such as reticulated giraffe and Grevy zebra.  However, In 1977 there was a ban on legalized game hunting in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.  Without the infrastructure of shooting blocks and visiting hunting parties who had been paying top dollar to visit the less inhabited areas, North and East of Kenya became extremely exposed to poaching, mainly by Somali Shifta who came into Kenya in their droves to poach ivory and Rhino horn. 

In less than 10 years, it is estimated that 30,000 animals were killed.  Very little remained.  Rhino were killed off completely, a few frightened elephant scattered and without them the landscape turned quickly to dense bush, a harsh environment for other to live in animals too.  The landscape became barren and unpenetrable.

We all know that Meru and Kora National Parks were ravaged by poachers (if not, read Born Free or Born Wild by lion conservationists Joy Adamson and Tony Fitzjohn respectively). 

The same problem was experienced within the Mathews Range forest eco-system except obviously this area was not a gazetted national park.  Local pastoralist communities, for instance, living in and around the Mathews Range, who historically have been marginalized both politically and economically in Kenya and prone to longstanding ethnic rivalries, were terrorised, murdered; literally caught in the crossfire.

In 1989, when Ian Craig and his friend Kinyanjui were camped out on a hill right opposite what is now Sarara and by chance witnessed a whole herd of elephant being massacred by Somali poachers, they were shocked but also motivated to act.  They felt that the appalling situation could not continue.  The first step Ian Craig made was to encourage the local community north of his ranch Lewa to build Il Ngwesi, a community run camp which continues successfully to this day.   But a larger area needed security.  The Mathews Range is vast.  His next idea was to set up a camp at Sarara even further north, intended as another avenue through which funding to secure this fragile area could be raised.

Nothern Rangelands Trust

Working with the Kenya Government, in 1995 The Northern Rangelands Trust was established in partnership with The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy etc.  Please click on the link above, because it makes interesting reading.  The NRT's role is to provide an infrastructure for local communities to communicate and ensure security in the area.

To quote their website:

The Northern Rangelands Trust has an expanding membership of Community Conservancies and encompasses over 3 million acres. It provides these communities with a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences, and is a technical, advisory and implementing organisation for its members.

Specific objectives of the Northern Rangelands Trust are:
•Ensure the conservation, management and sustainable use of the natural resources within the Trust Area;
•Promote and develop tourism and all other environmentally sustainable income-generating projects within the Trust Area;
•Promote culture, education and sports of the residents of the Trust Area;
•Promote better health of the residents of the Trust Area through the provision of better health services and facilities;

•Alleviate poverty of the inhabitants of the Trust Area through improved social services, provision of employment and establishment of community-based enterprises;
•Promote and support trusts, corporations, NGOs and other charitable organisations with similar objects to those of the Trust.

BUT - organisations like the Northern Rangelands Trust need funding.  So this is where a vital place like Sarara comes in.

The Complicated bit:
 
Sarara Camp falls under the umbrella of the Northern Rangelands Trust (an area that now covers 3 million acres) and is located within an area called the Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust (which was initially 180,000 acres and is now 850,000 acres in size).  It goes without saying that The Trust doesn't OWN this vast area land, the Trust is set up to benefit the people who already live there.

When the Namunyak Trust was set up and it was proposed that a camp might be built for tourists, whose profits would benefit the local community, there was instant distrust amongst the local community.  Are white men trying to take our land?  However, before setting up Sarara Camp or The Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust there were a lot of meetings with members of the local community to address this sensitivity, a lot of communication, a lot of discussion with elders.  It was a long, process. 

The NWCT headquarters are now located in Wamba and the trust is administered by locally elected community elders.  Ian Craig and the manager of Sarara Camp are also on the committee. 
It's worth pointing out here, that setting up Sarara was also a leap of faith for those who came in to build and run the camp.  Which overseas tourists would want to come and pay to visit an area with no animals?  However, they believed (with what appears to be blind faith) that with a new found security, the animals would return to the area.  It has taken 15 years but today we can see that animals have come back - though there is still a way to go.

Securing the area

But how to ensure security in this fast tract of land? 

There are now 40 scouts in the NRT area, all selected from various communities around and about.  Each and every scout/ranger has undergone 6 months to 1 year of KWS training (paid for by the trust), all are allocated hand held, solar powered radios and they report back to one of 19 area HQs in case of problems, sightings of poachers etc.  The HQs are all equipped with a radio room, manager's office, accomodation/housing for the scouts/rangers plus a cooking space, meeting space etc.  The conservancies are grouped into regions with regional managers who oversee issues.  Most of the regional co'ordinators have MA degrees - their higher eduction funded in many cases by the trust too.

The system is working

On seeing how local people were benefiting from the NWCT scheme, where the all important security was provided, health and education schemes, water initiatives - many other pastoralist communities wanted to join the Namunyak Trust too - that's why the area under the Trust auspices has grown phenomenally from a 180,000 acre to a 850,000 acres in a relatively short time.  But to provide support to such a huge area also requires yet more money.

Sarara needs to raise enough funds for the rapidly growing Namunyak Wildlife Conservation Trust.  In 2010 they raised $150,000 for the local community.  I'm afraid that Il Ngwesi makes far less from tourism because the at the moment, the Sarara model is far more profitable - however all income streams are obviously a bonus for the Trust.

In tune with NRT guidelines, this is exactly how Sarara profits are split:

• Sarara Camp donates 60% of profits to a community run trust who invest the money in community development, education, healthcare, water development and a scheme whereby there is compensation available for the local population when wildlife comes into conflict with their property.
• The remaining 40% of revenue earned is earmarked for the Northern Rangelands Trust operating costs, including conservancy staff, security and infrastructure maintenance.

So - believe it or not - there's no-one pocketing armfuls of cash at anyone else's expense.

This is hard to swallow but in addition, having originally built Sarara Camp using personal funds in 1997, in an unprecedented move the owner/manager donated the entire lodge to the local community so the buildings, fixtures and fittings, infrastructure/water system, everything he paid for at the outset, is now wholly owned by the Samburu communities of the Namunyak Trust. 

First hand feedback
I spoke to many of the Samburu who worked in and around the camp.  They said that when elephant used to come and destroy their wells they would kill the elephant - not for the ivory, just in frustration for many days work destroyed.  It's a different story now that the Samburu can now get compensation from the Namyunak trust or NRT - they said that there's no need for killing any more.  A ranger comes and photographs or reports on the damage and then a claim is made.  The wildlife/human conflict is fairly dealt with, everybody is happy.

Whereas before wildlife was a nuisance, the Samburu can see now that tourist dollars, administered by their own elders, contribute to a car for taking a sick member of their community to hospital, or to bursaries for their childrens' education, something that they would never get from their own government. 

In fact the trained Samburu guides we met are absolutely proud of their wildlife, are hugely knowledgable and can read the landscape, the spoor of wild animals, the flora and fauna - with incredible insight.  These guys are the ones who make the Sarara Camp experience so rich and worth paying a premium for.

Apologies for calling this charity....

Kate Middleton's Kenyan belt

Kate's Kenyan belt

OMG - Kate bought this belt that she's wearing on her Canada tour, in Kenya.  Must have picked it up in Nairobi or perhaps in the Barney's shop at Nanyuki airstrip.  A friend of mine has the exact same one.  I have one by the same maker, but different beaded design - afterall, how can one possibly live in Kenya without a beaded belt?!?!? Ha ha!

Kate's is a 4cm handmade leather belt with white shell discs, from Linda Camm.  Sadly I can't see the exact same one on the website though - but perhaps you could order?   They don't come cheap at $72 online, much cheaper to buy here in Nairobi, at around 3,800/-. Sadly there are only tiny sizes in this style in the shop. Nothing long enough for my mighty hips, and the style is being phased out. Let's hope, for all Kate M groupies, that Linda Camm decides on a new run in this style.  Click the link below:

http://beadedleatherwork.com/index.php/Belts/View-all-products.html

Linda Camm's belt on display

I was hoping to see Wills wearing Bata boots 'The boots that say you know Africa' too, but shame, I think that they were Timberlands.

The trials of hardware shopping, Nairobi

Hardware shop

I think I went to the local hardware shop four or was it five times yesterday.  It felt like groundhog day but that's how organised I am, ie not very.  It's partly my fault and partly the nature of the hardware shop itself.  The place sucks you in then keeps you there, like a vortex.  You're thinking, 'I'd like this, oh, and while I'm here, I'll take that.'  Then as soon as you leave, 'oh damn, I forgot the other.  Why not pop back?'

The reason for the hardware frenzy?  Our gardener has decided, due to rising rent (2,500/- a month for his small mbati room?!), to move into our staff quarters with his small family and save some cash.  Fortunately we have bags of room over there, it's a sort of row of 1930s cottagey rooms, but it's all looking a bit run down (especially since the nightwatchman decided to spend last cold season next to a fire he lit right under the eves of the staff quarters - envisage vast expanse of brown stained wall) so yesterday was the launch of the facelift operation.  Re-cementing floors, repainting walls, applying new locks to doors, calling in of electricians etc.

 ***

There is secure parking just outside the hardware shop - which is a good thing because just outside their fence is a ' free zone' occupied by a concentrated mass of beggars and hawkers, whose roaming rights have been reduced down to this small area since shopping centres around are increasingly employing their own guard companies to keep beggars and hawkers out.  So, this small patch beyond the hardware shop parking area has become is a free for all of impromptu trading; for dvd sellers, a mini authentic masai craft market manned by masai ladies seated on the ground, busily beading; a mitumba (second hand) clothing emporium that keeps on growing, a second hand shoes and boots specialist, a sign maker, shoe polisher, a flower selling operation - all outdoor 'en plein air'.  Park in that little area at your peril, as you will invariably have to run the gauntlet of all these casual traders.   Sometimes you are in the mood to simply smile when the umpteenth person offers to 'watch' your car, or help you reverse out of a space, and sometimes you definitely are not. 

***

But still, the hardware shop experience requires plenty of patience too.  Even though there seem to be enough workers milling around the shop floor to man a small factory, getting service takes time.  To make the process more difficult, all the things you want are never on the amply sized shop floor itself, but hidden within recesses or darkened rooms behind the desk - so basically assistance is required to buy anything.  Then there's the problem of actually getting across what it is you are actually looking for.  Not easy in my case since DIY was never a strength.  The process goes something like this.

• Once you have put in your request, somebody will disappear for a while then bring back a selection of varyingly priced items from which to choose from based on your own superior knowledge.  (Obviously, for me this is a hard part).  If what you want is not there, then the man or woman will have to disappear off again.  Repeat search.

• When you need paint, this involves picking a shade from a colour chart then getting it  mixed up in the machine behind.  Admittedly, this process can be quite fast, as long as there aren't too many others ordering paint at the same time.

• While waiting as the shop assistant keeps disappearing, I browse around the shop itself.  The serving staff behind the desk where white coats, the ones on the shop floor wear brown coats.  If by any miracle you have asked for something that is displayed on the shop floor, then the white coat will shout to the brown coat to find it for me - again, more explaining required.

• If you want bigger stuff, like cement, sand, metal rods, wood planks, fencing, then you'll find this is stored behind the shop.  A blue receipt in hand, you'll need to take your car around the back for loading.

• Once the collection of oddments are ready on the glass topped desk, then a receipt must be written - always in more than one book.  Yesterday, on one of my visits, my bill was split between two receipt books and for some inexplicable reason I had to pay for the cement seperately with cash.  When I asked why the man who was helping me said wearily, 'it's a very long story.'

• At this point, you realise you don't have enough cash.  It's amazing how all these hardware items add up!  You hand over your card to the man or woman has been serving you.  By now, you have sore legs from standing at the desk so long (in one case yesterday, over half an hour).  You've already sized up everyone else in the shop (normally aged over 65) and suddenly you are losing the will to live.

• Your card, with the collection of receipts gets stuffed through a mysterious hole in the bottom of a blacked out glass window behind the desk.  An even more mysterious hand whips out and grabs the card. 

• The man serving you drums his fingers on the table a while then gets distracted by another customer, meanwhile, you've already seen your card shoot out of the mysterious hole and, desperate to get out of the vortex, you start gesticulating wildly.  'Can I just sign?' You call over, but to no avail.  The mysterious hole in the black glass is too far away to reach across, the man serving you has gone off to have a long conversation about fittings for plumbing.

• Finally, you have paid.  A man in a brown coat helps you carry your things to your car (thank you very much).  You then reverse around to the back to pick up the big things, then wait while these are loaded.  This is generally a struggle because said items are too big to put in the car.  So there's a bit of putting seats down etc.

• Finally you have everything.  You drive out back through the gauntlet of beggars and hawkers, but the traffic is bad so it takes time to inch your way out and your car is baking because it's been sitting in the sun for so long.

• You get home.  The fundi (workman) says that the fittings you have bought are slightly wrong, plus he's run out of something else - but you don't mind, because you also realise you've got another wrong fitting that needs to go back and you wouldn't mind picking something else.....and so back you go.

 So there it is.  The hardware shop.

****

In them meantime, our househelp's daughter is loving her new job in the hair salon!  I gather she's doing really well and is helping on both the hair and beauty side getting loads of hands on experience.  Apparently she's the youngest there and she's working hideously long hours but it's working out for the time being.  She recently massaged a well known Kenyan politician's wife - I wonder if she got a tip or perhaps the lady was feeling a bit skint since the Kenyan MPs are all having to pay back tax arrears.  Anyway, politics aside, that's all great.

Re my 11 year old daughter and her exams.  The results weren't desperate, but they weren't that great either.  My 'hands off ' approach to revision obviously needs a re-think.  I was called in to see her languages teachers this week to discuss how we can improve her results (holiday homework).  The Spanish teacher was sweet;  'who knows?' she said, 'your daughter will probably never really need Spanish in her future life.'

I thought that it was big of her to say this, but the truth is, my daughter still needs to pass her exams.  I can see years of mother/child revision yawning ahead.

It's end of term week this week too.  So far we've done a concert, a play, an end of term party, an end of term lunch, an end of term assembly, teachers' presents and cards, another assembly today followed by speeches tomorrow.  Phew.

busman's holiday - travel writing

Walking out of Sarara Camp

Earlier this week, after a dozen changes of plans and a slightly fraught palming-off of children onto extremely kind friends, my husband and I went away for two nights, to Northern Kenya.  This was a busman's holiday for me since the deal is that I now write an in depth piece on the highly swanky and upmarket Sarara Camp for a travel mag.  This was only my second travel assignment but you will see why it was worth moving heaven and earth to get there.  The place was magical - I would go back again in a heartbeat if funds were ever permitting. 

There are only six tents and though the camp is run by experienced white Kenyan safari guides who bring in the dollars and make sure everything is up to standard, it's actually owned by the local community of Samburu people.  The deal in this case is quite unique, a beneficial partnership whereby 60% of the camp's profits are given to and managed by the Samburu community,  then subsequently spent on community development, healthcare, education bursaries, water etc - while the remaining 40% covers running costs, salaries, vehicles, radios etc, ie the infrastructure of the camp itself.  So by visiting you are sort of making a charity donation to the Samburu people whose precarious existence has often in the past been threatened by poachers, invaders and serious drought.

You also might like to know (I love this sort of thing); Sarara was the jumping off point for Wills and Kate on their 'proposal' safari in Kenya (apparently it's true Wills wasn't letting go of that rucksack!) - and Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were staying recently.  On a more down to earth level - We were greeted by a tame 2 week old Kudu, went walking with Samburu guides into the hills, did night game drives and spotted leopard, visited a Samburu village, swam in a fresh water pool and ate like kings - so you get the picture.  Exclusive, luxury, active and heavenly. 

Being waited on at mealtimes by Samburu warriors in full regalia was a unique experience, as were bush sundowners by a camp fire in the floor of a dry riverbed, overlooked (to our surprise) by a malevolent hyena.  We saw and tracked leopard really quite close up on 3 occasions which was fantastic for me since after 12 years of living in the E Africa region, I've only ever glimpsed one, maybe two in the wild before and always in the very far distance. 

Leopard, looking at me, looking at you


Plus the scenery over the remote and unspoiled Mathews range was breathtaking.  Huge tents, hot showers, flushing loos, not another vehicle or tourist in sight.

However, as a travel writer (ha ha ha!) I realise that the occupation has it's ups and downs.  I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be more fun to visit 'incognito', then have the freedom report back at will - however this is unrealistic.  I am not complaining - honestly I'm not - but visiting places gratis as a writer has its pitfalls. 

1.  You can't plan the trip to suit your own timetable.  They crop up suddenly and it's necessary to be able to drop everything and go, or else miss out.
2. You get the creeping suspicion that fellow guests might be slightly resentful of your presence (bless them) because after all - they are paying and you are not.  Feeling like a freeloader is not the best and however you sugar coat it, that is what you are.
3. You might be in heaven but you're there to work.  When all you want to do is kick back and relax, you are frantically reading in-camp info and taking notes, hoping to memorize a lot of stuff too.
4. The person who commissions the piece 'owns' you for the duration of your stay.  They want to 'chat' often, show you everything, then make sure you talk to absolutely everyone who has a stake in the place.
On one occasion, the camp manager actually said 'oh good, you've got a notebook with you this time' in rather a meaningful way.  I must admit, I bristled.
5. You have to have the confidence & bravado to sell yourself, be self assured, brag about what a marvellous, experienced writer you are and how you are going to write a fantastic piece. (Am really not good at that sort of thing, hate it).
6. Your travelling partner (if you are lucky enough to have one) is required to take a back seat and share your time with the lodge/camp in question.  Put it this way, my husband sweetly packed a bottle of champagne on this trip since it was the first time we'd gone away without the kids for 2 years - we didn't open it.

The up-side.

1.  You don't have to pay and you may well be staying somewhere out of your normal price bracket.
2.  You get to do and see amazing things that, let's face it, you probably wouldn't normally make time for.
3.  You get well looked after when you are there, often recieve the personal attention of the camp owner/manager.
4. The travel magazine does the hard work of finding a place for you to go.  Don't know about you guys but, even in this digital age, I find that unless a destination has been personally recommended then I am at a total loss. 
A case in point, we considered going to Egypt briefly at Easter time, then gave up because we didn't really know where to start organising the sort of holiday we wanted.
3.  You can tell everyone about new, fab places to visit (do look at the Sarara website if you dare).

The previous assignment I had was a trip to Mike's Camp in Kiwayu.  With only six or so beach huts on a remote island north of Lamu and visitors such as Colin Firth, it was equally luxurious and fabulous again as Sarara, with a quirky style of its own, charasmatic host, certainly a place that you could write home about to make everyone (ie on Facebook) green with envy. 

So, as things stand, if you fell into some cash or won the lottery, would like 5 star personal treatment and don't mind flying in small aircraft around the country, I would happily recommend these two lodges/camps as the perfect remote Beach and Bush combination in Kenya for adventurous souls.

The best bit?  Neither place had a phone signal for my Airtel phone (although they did have Safaricom coverage), so no one from home was able to report back with dramas related to the kids, the pets or the house.  I was blissfully out of contact.  Think I'll stick with Airtel for that reason if nothing else!  It's rare these days to find anyone ever switching off.  Even though I was 'on duty' at the time, I have fab memories of both trips and feel very lucky to have visited.  Oh how the other half live!

To read more on how to become a travel writer, click here for tips from Wanderlust