December 2013: A pinch of culture, a dash of colour and dollop of exciting game viewing made an excellent Christmas feast at Ekorian’s Mugie Camp!

Its been a busy month starting with a road trip to the Maasai Mara. A long drive from Ekorian’s Mugie Camp, but we had a great few days at Alex Walkers Serian; this camp has a stunning location on the Mara river and we had some amazing game viewing, as usual, the Mara always puts on a show! It was so lovely to be spoilt in another camp before coming back Mugie to take on the busy Christmas season.



To start the Christmas rush we had some Canadian visitors who loved a good walk. So we decided to join the bloodhounds on their daily excise. They gave a great demonstration on how they work and then we headed off to the Mugie vegetable patch and Khat(Cathula Edulis) garden.  Mugie has one of the largest single plantations of Khat. It is fascinating to see how it’s picked and wrapped in banana leaves ready to be sent off.

We ended our walk with a much appreciated picnic lunch on the golf course. The dry season is also aloe season, and the golf course islooking beautiful in full aloe bloom.

The next day we packed a picnic lunch and headed off to Kaptuya Conservancy. This is a community conservancy set up by the local tribe of the area- The Pokot. These people have very little exposure to the outside world, unlike the highly exposed Samburu and Maasai tribes. They gave us a tour of their Boma and a demonstration of their traditional dances.

We then enjoyed a picnic lunch over looking the Great Rift Valley and Lake Baringo. On the way home we stopped off at a little villagewhere our guests got to see what everyday town life is like and what is sold in the local “supermarket”- a small little hut which sells a few essentials such as sugar, maize meal, a few beads, motor bike parts, and …!

Our favorite Nairobi guests where back for the 3^rd time this year. Maybe they just can’t get enough of us? This time they fitted in a game of golf and on their way back to camp a cheetah nearly ran into the car after an impala, she killed it close by and we all had a great sighting of her devouring it.

We started work on the Island last month, which is nowready! What a great spot it makes for picnics, sundowners, fishing and it even makes a great helipad; talking of which, the Ol Malo helicopter tried it out on the 24^th, taking their guests to do a spot of fishing on the island before coming in to Ekorian’s Mugie Camp for the night.

What a way to arrive!

This was a bunch of high-spirited guests who had a good party until the early hours of Christmas morning! They then helicoptered out to return to Ol Malo in time for their Christmas lunch leaving us to welcome alovely group from San Francisco.

We had loads of fun with these guys who were ready foreverything on offer, including a ferocious game of volleyball against our staff team, proudly, the Ekorian team showed everyone what they were made of and beat the guests fair and square!

They had some good golf, or some not so good, but great fun. They also made the most of the Kayaks and the youths had some fun water wars!  We were even invited to visit a samburu circumcision ceremony. This is an extremely colourful event, with the samburu dressed up for the occasion in their magnificent beads and bright coloured Shukas.



The wildlife has also been magnificent this month. One family was lucky enough to catch sight of a female lion introducing here new cubs to the rest of the pride, what a special moment!

We bought the New Year in in style with a few drinks around the camp fire at midnight and then again at midday on the 1^st we had a few more drinks to celebrate New Year Alaskan time with our Alaskan guests on the Island while waiting for the Elephants to embark on their daily swim in the dam, before a delicious picnic lunch under the island shelter!

So here’s to a great 2014 ahead! And we are looking forward to sharing more of Mugie’s splendor in the New Year!

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