We drive out of Karatu to reach the gates to Ngororongoro Conservation Area that’s home to the spectacular crater and the endless plains of the Serengeti – a fitting name borrowed from the Maa word, Siringit.
Dawn is breaking and the idea is to catch sunrise in the crater. At the gate, the baboons stir from the night trees, stretch and yawn to reveal massive jaws.
The gate keepers to the heavenly abode scrutinise our tickets, especially the Kenyan IDs. My Dad’s Kenyan ID states place of birth as India. For the Tanzania National Park’s (TANAPA = Kenya’s KWS) he must provide his passport to prove he is Kenyan or else he will not be allowed out of the NCA. Bizarre.
To cut a long story short, we do miss sunrise over the rim – but the view is surreal, for no one seeing this for the first time would believe there’s a crater below the opaque white-mist blanket
And as the ethereal orb in fiery hues of gold rises to chase away the mist, it’s jaw-dropping to watch the ancient crater reveal itself.
A road trip where history, wildlife and modern East Africa meet at every turn. The journey is unforgettable as the destination itself. By Rupi Mangat
Published: Saturday Nation magazine 6 December 2025
The road from Nairobi to Ngorongoro on either side of the Kenya-Tanzania border has changed rapidly since the millennium. Kitengela, once a dusty road-side village is now a busy town with modern malls like Nairobi. The tarmac road leads us past Il Bisil that boasts a little-known Neolithic site when Homo sapien was beginning to settle around 10,000 years ago and then to the one-stop border at Namanga on the foothills of the Black Mountain or Ol Donyo Orok more popularly called the Namanga Hills. It was on this road I saw my first Greater kudu dash across the murrum road caught in the car light one night in 1974.
The one-stop border is efficient without the long wait of the old days and we’re in Tanzania.
The nyika is dry. It’s October and the land is parched. Mile after mile, it’s the thorn trees and scrub with only the green on Mount Longido breaking the monotone of earth and a solitary young Maasai giraffe.
On Global Big Day 10 May 2025 from Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp
Above: The Sleeping warrior aka Delamere’s nose between Lake Elmenteita and Mt Eburru. Credit Aloise Garvey
By Rupi Mangat
Published Saturday Nation newspaper magazine 17 May 2025
It’s the calm of the morning, serene and quiet, one that l don’t want broken, one that l am alone in. In this world in front of me, a solitary Great White Pelican swims in the expanse of the grey-blue lake, reflected in its still waters as is the massif of Eburru and the profile of the Sleeping Warrior that we knew as Delamere’s nose in days past.
Soysambu Conservancy with Flamingos on Lake Elmenteita and Delamere’s Nose. Copyright Rupi Mangat
It’s still early and it’s the day to celebrate birds for it’s the Global Big Day for birders all over the world with birders in Kenya fanned out in the country except in the north-eastern. I’ve teamed up with two super birders Aloise Garvey Maina and Anthony Mokaya at Soysambu Conservancy to log in as many species of the feathered kind on the eBird app in a bid to make Kenya ranked amongst the top ten countries for birding. The giants of the birding world that have never been toppled since the start of GBD in 2014 are Colombia, Peru and Ecuador with Kenya hovering in the 7th or 8th position. Our mission is to inch closer to the coveted top spot.
As the morning warms the yellow-barked acacia woodland and the lawns of Lake Elmenteita Serena come alive with the cacophony of birds where Aloise is a most sought-after naturalist. By 8 in the morning, Aloise and Anthony have logged in 50 species at the camp and after a filling breakfast of freshly-baked pastries and fresh fruits followed by a hearty helping of a cooked breakfast, we’re driving out into the conservancy that takes its name from the Maasai words for ‘the place of striated rock’ and ‘Sambu’ for the cattle colour, aptly chosen by the first Lord Delamere.
Boran cattle at Soysambu. Copyright Rupi Mangat
A colourful character from the past, he walked some 1,000 kilometres from Berbera in Somaliland to arrive in Kenya in 1897 when only in his early twenties. He then swopped his palatial estate in Cheshire to fund his projects in his adopted home building himself a mud-hut that was doorless and windowless to sleep. Delamere introduced the short-horn cattle and cross-bred them with the indigenous Borana cattle that became a hallmark of the beef industry. It’s history framed on the canvas wall of the palatial lounge fashioned after the early days of safaris that the rich came to Africa for in the early 1900s.
Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp
Having morphed from only a cattle ranch into a wildlife conservancy that’s famed for its 450 species of birds, lions, 10 percent of the global population of the endangered Rothschild giraffes, and so much more, we’re regaled by a Green-headed sunbird which the two men are keen to photograph. “The Green-headed sunbird is a central Kenya species but when it’s too cold in the highlands, it flies south for warmer climes,” narrates Aloise who grew up fascinated by nature mentored by his grandfather.
A solitary Lesser flamingo in the now-fresh Lake Elmenteita. Credit Aloise Garvey
Armed with binoculars and super-powerful cameras like the Cannon R5 with a 200-800 mm lens, we scan the plains peppered with lilac and white wild flowers and scour the blue skies. The men shoot the Martial that’s the most powerful and a pair of Tawny that has them wandering into the grassland when they are surprised by a pair of Secretarybirds stalking for their menu of snakes and rodents. Numerous until recently, these stately birds are now labelled ‘endangered’. Mokaya is elated when he logs in the Coqui francolin, a lifer for him – meaning it’s the first time he’s seeing it.
The list expands, a herd of Rothschild amble by, a pair of Silver-backed jackals frolic in the long grass and by the lakeshore that’s risen from a single-digit foot to 30-plus, the handsome bulls for beef with impressive humps are herded for a drink to the lake in the company of the Grey white pelican that perform a synchronized dance to gulp their fish. The now-submerged islands in the lake are their only breeding ground in East Africa.
Great White Pelicans getting ready for breakfast. So they have to pool together and start herding the fish in a tigtt fist. Then the pelicans will upturn themselves with just their ‘tutus’ showing while they open their great big bills and snap up the fish. Copyright Rupi Mangat
The Merorani flows in spate, few flamingos grace the lake and by eventide with 166 species logged in, we return to the comfort of the camp to dine on exquisite foods. Click the linkhttps://ebird.org/checklist/S235684791 to see Aloise’s bird list on GBD. The preliminary results has Kenya ranked 8th.
Log Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp to see the 24 palatial en-suite tents that come complete with king-sized beds and chandeliers. Lake Elmenteita Serena is for the discerning traveller without the crowds. Indulge at the signature spa, swim in the heated pool, or ride the horses and camels by the lakeshore, game drives and nature walks– the camp’s fashioned to revel in nature.
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 15th and 16th centuries and the home of the Koranic Sankore University founded in the 14th century that was the intellectual and spiritual centre of Islam throughout Africa.
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.
Moonlion Safaris 