Crown Caught
Spot of the Week
Crown Caught

When Valley Camp royalty like Bernard Soit exclaim they have never seen a particular eagle before, you know you are talking twitching nobility.

Dyer need for a safari
Spot of the Week
Dyer need for a safari

Meet Laura Dyer, Kicheche has become her Hotel California ... she 'can try to check out any time she likes but she can never leave'. Laura extended her safari three times, finally returning home after five weeks. Thank you Laura, these are her heartfelt lyrics:

Priceless
Spot of the Week
Priceless

The plains of Laikipia still remain a high altitude garrison for rhino. Within minutes from Kicheche's northern stronghold, the black and white numbers are not only stable, but flourishing. Spending time with these prehistoric ruminants is not just good for the eye, but for the soul. This area of Kenya remains seemingly impregnable, yet it is not the same all over Africa and elsewhere. Rhinos need protection everywhere, this is obvious, but they also need tourists. They do NOT need petty rules and redlists denying them priceless tourism dollars.

Sign of the Times
Spot of the Week
Sign of the Times

A couple of days ago I read an itinerant post of safari one-upmanship braying that 'the best part of their bargain-priced safari was that they had the whole place to themselves'. This is the fundamental challenge that is facing the safari industry. These pilgrims probably could not see beyond their camouflage but for many the suffering is very real and widespread.

Cloud Cuckoo Land
Spot of the Week
Cloud Cuckoo Land

Optimism is a valuable but rarified commodity right now for just about everyone, but particularly those in community-based tourism. Everytime a hurdle is summited a higher one emerges. Kichechians still arrive in trickles not torrents, but trickles all the same. There are still huge difficulties but they realise how much their safari matters to everyone. It is appreciated. Massively. It is frankly overwhelming.

Two bites at the Cherie
Spot of the Week
Two bites at the Cherie

Meet John and Cherie Briggs .... Kicheche's final guests in March last year before they had to climb through countless hoops to get home to the States. They are back in Bush Camp. 'This is our favourite place on earth, we want to support it and the Conservancies.' In The Telegraph last weekend Simon Reeve shared reflections on some of the unforgettable trips that have mapped his personal world including a wildlife encounter he will never forget on a Kicheche safari.

Telegraph Man
Spot of the Week
Telegraph Man

“Travel is part of our make-up; we need it in our lives, and we lose it at our peril.” ' Simon Reeve  In The Telegraph last weekend Simon Reeve shared reflections on some of the unforgettable trips that have mapped his personal world including a wildlife encounter he will never forget on a Kicheche safari.

Genetic
Spot of the Week
Genetic

Rain, grown-up rain, clear skies then 1500+ metres of altitude going to work on the saturated short-grass of Naboisho Conservancy produces mist .... a photographer's dream. However, lions playing over their meal .... killers in the mist .... do not earn the garlands this week.

Hart in mouth.
Spot of the Week
Hart in mouth.

Those five cheetah boys need scant introduction having patrolled the plains and Conservancies of the Mara with impunity for almost four years. To see them perform takes time, hard time, proper time as they have taken sloth to a fatiguing level of frustration.

Back in the game.
Spot of the Week
Back in the game.

Acres of caustic prose have been written about 2020, Spot of the Week has no intention of adding to this pile of cynicism. Right now a savage storm is ripping across the Mara Conservancies leavening already fertile grasslands. In Laikipia lions are dragging down a buffalo, before parading across the highlands in front of both Mt Kenya and some indifferent white rhino.