For a photographer or anyone who appreciates those really special, precious, and often fleeting wildlife moments, it is best to be alert just after dawn or as the sun drops for the day. A lot needs to line up for this to work but this is where the Kicheche magicians take control.
Enter Zarek Cockar, a rare high carat gold certified guide setting the gold standard with some of our seasoned guides he describes as 'some of the best in the business.' He's right but, as Patrick would proclaim: every day is a school day and Zarek spent a week with the supposed C-list species bringing them out of the wings into the limelight.
Not everyone who arrives at Kicheche even has a camera, many believing that magical wildlife moments are best recorded by memory rather than megapixels, but a good number love this popular yet deeply frustrating hobby.
Early, Acacia pride quartering the plains near KMC ... the sun is yet to wake and these cats are hungry for anything? Perhaps not this.
One Conservancy and two events worthy of documentation. Kulete, favoured cheetah of Olare and Naboisho has FINALLY revealed her hand, or indeed her brood, appearing within minutes of camp with three tiny spotty balls of fluff. She has managed to elude the many looking for her in the previous weeks. Top work Charles for chivvying them from their lair and nice work Nancie for lining them up in her viewfinder.
Just because Naboisho Conservancy has the highest population of giraffes anywhere in Africa does not mean they should be taken for granted. Mika Kaleku is one of Kicheche's longest-serving and most charismatic guides. He has made Naboisho his own and is enormously popular. However, his DNA is woven with a deep spirituality and indeed burning sense of proprietariness towards this beautiful parcel of land.
In June 2000 five staff waited for the two new owners to arrive at their small simple camp in the Northern Masai Mara. They had nothing to fear. One of them stood out straight away as he towered over the others and indeed some of the nearby bushes and trees. Shy, almost painfully but clearly with a burning desire to impress and a level of kindness and consideration almost unmatched anywhere, Lenye didn't take long to become an institution.
'Busy morning with mating leopards' were Bernard's and Mika's casual drawls on their seismic morning drive. No animal raises the pulse more than a leopard, but this was a far harder spotted currency. Figlet is one of our own and she was with the monstrous Mkubwa - almost twice her size - turning a forested area in Naboisho into a Balanites boudoir for hours.
For a drink that was once unkindly called 'mother's ruin,' gin has undergone a posh renaissance over thelast 10 years. It used to be a green bottle, ice and a slice and a bit of tonic..... not anymore. Cucumber has found itself into the frosted tumblers and tonic has become a feverish and thirsty game of one-upmanship. Gins have changed too, so, with that in mind we give you 'The Bush Camp Gin Bar'.
Even the humblest African author tries to do justice to its extraordinary light. A thousand adjectives and prose acres are willfully sowed daily, yet few (Including this) do justice to this remarkable phenomena, yet it performs every day, especially in East Africa.
