Moonlion Safaris

Horse Riding on the Beach for a good cause

Published on April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 by Rupi Mangat1 Comment

By Rupi Mangat

Published: Saturday Nation magazine: 10 April 2025

Kenya’s South Coast boasts one of the world’s most beautiful beaches with powder white sands and the tropical blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Protected by a stunning reef that’s rich with colourful corals and marine life, it’s paradise for beach lovers who love to walk barefoot on the beach, snorkel, scuba dive, deep sea fishing and kite surfing. Added now to the list is horse riding, a new adventure even for those who have never sat on a horse.

Clients riding on the beach at Diani on Kenya South Coast. Courtesy Sheila Somaia

“Everybody wants to ride on the beach,” states the Kenyan-born Sheila, patting one of her horses at the stable near the beach. “We ride between 7.30 a.m. and 9.30 a.m. and then in the evening between 4.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m.,” tells the horse woman who fell in love with horses as a child, a passion that’s not waned six decades on. “It’s cooler for the horses before the sun turns on its heat,” she continues. “Horse welfare is the number one priority at this stable”.

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Birding at Breakfast, celebrating a global big day at Sandai, Mweiga

Published on May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Published Saturday magazine an insert in Nation newspaper 25 May 2024

Above: Petra Allmendinger birding at breakfast on Global Big Day at Sandai House in Mweiga. Courtesy Petra Allmendinger

Worldwide, the birding community is abuzz on Saturday 11 May to log in as many species of birds as they can to participate in Global Big Day, marking its 10^th anniversary. A tech-savvy Kenyan birder has tagged all the spots in the country that birders will be at. Nobody’s birding in Mweiga and so we head that way to check in at Sandai, one of the most scenic houses in the world twixt the two big massifs of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares. It’s a dream farm house with cottages dotted around the expensive grass plains with surreal views of the great massifs on the equator.

Sandai House after the rains green with grass.

Driving in late afternoon, the sky is hung heavy with clouds threatening to burst with the ongoing heavy rains. It’s going to make bird watching a challenge but when a big raptor soars above to land on the tall acacia in the neighbouring Solio Ranch, more famous for its rhinos where you can see up to a mind-boggling 40 in a day, things begin to look up.

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The enduring legacy of the African Heritage House

Published on May 14, 2024 by Rupi Mangat1 Comment

Every floor is a testimony to Africa’s great arts, giving accolade to the African Heritage House as the most photographed house in the world.

Published: Nation newspaper Saturday magazine 11 May 2024

Above: The African Heritage House. Credit Maya Mangat

It’s nostalgic being back at the African Heritage House, one of the world’s most unique houses inspired by all that is African – from her architecture to the arts, from her textiles to the cuisine.

I remember the first time driving up there in early 2006 and wondering if we had the correct address amidst the urban sprawl of Mlolongo. I see the same expression on my guests till we arrive at the house, the façade inspired by the mud mosques of Timbuktu and Djenne in Mali.

The mud mosque of Timbuktu that so inspired Alan Donovan to build the African Heritage House Copyright Rupi Mangat

It was the first time I had seen anything like that. The mystical Timbuktu came alive, which was the centre of Islamic studies in the 15^th and 16^th centuries and the home of the Koranic Sankore University founded in the 14^th century that was the intellectual and spiritual centre of Islam throughout Africa.

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Tales from Tsavo East

Published on May 6, 2024 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Above: Elephants at the waterhole at Voi Wildlife Lodge looking into Tsavo East National Park. Image courtesy.

Published: Saturday magazine in Nation newspaper 4 May 2024

The air is still and sun-baked. I take refuge under the shade of the banda staring into space that is the grandeur of Tsavo East National Park. It’s been 20 years since l sat in the same spot, with the solitary baobab for company at Voi Wildlife Lodge on the edge of the great park.

It’s opportune time to read the new edition of ‘The African Baobab’ by Rupert Watson, lawyer by profession and naturalist by choice. Every page l turn of the full-colour book on baobabs increases my awe of the tree.

**Baobab tree in leaf at Voi Wildlife Lodge overlooking Tsavo East National Park.** Image Rupi Mangat

Watson writes, ‘For starters, baobabs are living monuments, the oldest natural things in Africa, outlasting every plant and animal on the continent… They survive in the driest, rockiest areas of the continent – yet for all the hostility of much of their habitat, African baobabs live longer and grow larger than most other trees in the world. That is the great paradox of their existence.’

I didn’t know that, and suddenly realize that The African Baobab is one of two books fully dedicated to this living monument, some well over 2,000 years and still standing sentinel on the savannahs.

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Retreat time on Diani Beach on Kenya’s famed South Coast

Published on April 22, 2024April 22, 2024 by Rupi MangatLeave a comment

Above: Seafood appertizer served at Mvureni Beach Bar and Restaurant Diani Beach. Image Rupi Mangat

Published: Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 20 April 2024

**Angolan colobus monkeys infront of Maridadi Tulivu, Tamani compound Diani Beach. Image Inderjit Mangat**

White-tipped tails hang from the branches above, when suddenly they become animated, leaping from branch to branch of the ancient baobab. They belong to the troop of black and white monkeys searching for a shadier spot to rest and munch on the nutrious leaves of the baobab that on reading The African Baobab by Rupert Watson, I’m excited to realize that the baobab is Africa’s oldest living monument, some going back to the time of the pharaohs some 5,000 years ago although the quintessential tree is not found in Egypt.

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