Offbeat Safaris win the photo of the month competition on PURE's facebook page....please click on the link below to see Jakob and Chloe in action.....

http://www.facebook.com/purelifeexperiences

SOSIAN are thrilled to announce the following lodge management team that will be in place this coming season, from June to August:

Rosanna Constant – Lodge manageress and hostess.

Rosie has been an integral part of Sosian Lodge during the high season months for the past 4 years. Her passion and enthusiasm for Sosian is infectious and she always gives 100%. Rosie understands the standards that are required and how to make every guest feel special and take incredible memories home with them. Rosie is also a master in the kitchen with a professional cookery course under her belt, guests will be utterly spoilt!

Simon Kenyon – Lodge manager and guide

Simon has also been a key figure at Sosian during the high season months for the past 2 years. Having been born and brought up on his family farm in Laikipia, his knowledge of the bush, history and culture of Laikipia and Kenya is extensive. Simon has done much guiding for Sosian and Offbeat Riding Safaris and is a huge asset to the team.

Albie Venter – Guide

Albie is a vastly experienced guide from South Africa, who has been coming to help at Sosian for the past 2 years, and is also a close friend of Steve & Annabelle Carey. Needless to say, he knows exactly how to find the game at Sosian and is a dab hand at tracking the wild dog and lion!

So as you can see, the above team have all worked together at Sosian for the past few years and therefore know exactly what makes it tick! All the usual activities and friendly atmosphere will continue to welcome guests to Sosian and we look forward to fun and busy season ahead of us.

Rosie Constant Simon Kenyon Albie Venter Sean & Charlotte Outram

Sean Outram, the ranch and general manager at Sosian for the past 6 years, and his wife Charlotte (Offbeat Safaris!), are still very much involved in all the ‘behind the scenes’ running of Sosian as a whole.

Meanwhile, the owners of Sosian continue the search for the perfect managers to run Sosian lodge on a permanent basis from August/September onwards. No doubt we will keep you all posted on such developments but rest assured it will be a very special and experienced couple who will fill the position!

Great news the injured, orphaned elephant calf I helped rescue, Murera, is doing really well and now available for adoption. Please try and help as this is an amazing sanctuary and conservation project
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=267

Game continues to be absolutely fantastic in the Mara North Conservancy and the sightings have been incredible. This is the time to get out there! Lions have taken the front seat recently as our resident pride is going through some exciting times, right on our front step. Here’s one of our guides’, David Njapit’s, observations from the past two weeks.

There are thirteen lions whose territory surrounds the Offbeat Camp, therefore the pride is known as the Offbeat pride. The pride includes three big adult males, there adult lionesses and seven sub-adult cubs (4 males, 3 females). A male cub was killed by a group of six buffalo near the camp, in November 2011.

February has been a rather eventful time for this pride of lions, and we’ve been seeing them a lot. One of the lionesses, known as Napono, is now in the last week of her pregnancy. Lucinda, another adult lioness, is also pregnant, some two months along. Earlier this week the third adult female was seen mating with the adult males; in time we’ll see if she too is pregnant. Napono has been staying away from the rest of the pride, possibly looking for a safe place to hide the cubs, probably somewhere along Lion Ridge.

It’s a dramatic time for the young males, as the time has become for them to leave the pride. This week the two adult males have been seen chasing the young ones. The youngsters are already 3 years old, hence the time to leave, in order to avoid inbreeding. Once the males leave the pride for good, they’re likely to form a tight coalition and in time, will attempt to take over a pride elsewhere and claim a territory of their own. One of the young males has a scar, likely from being bitten by one of the adult males, while being chased out.

The three young lionesses have also been anxious and confused, as their brothers and cousins are being encouraged to leave the pride. The adult males have been trying to court the young females, but two of them rejected the males, as lions are induced ovulators. The third young lioness has accepted the males and tried to seduce one of them, but she in turn was rejected, as the third adult lioness was in season. The young female’s turn should come in the next couple of weeks and soon we’ll see how many litters of lion cubs we can expect to be born in the coming months. 

In addition to the exciting lion activity in the Offbeat concession, we’re in the middle of a localized zebra & wildebeest migration. The herbivores have been staying in our little valley and plains for about a week now. A lot of young ones are being born, we see brand new wildebeest calves every morning and zebra mares are also getting ready to deliver. In the past five days we’ve been getting short afternoon showers, and hope that keeps the herds in our neck of the woods another while longer, before heading off to the Loita plains. It’s quite a traffic jam driving up the hill now!

One of the acacias has a resident couple of white backed vultures, who are busy building a nest and now it looks like some lappet faced vultures are also checking out property!

On Tuesday this week Piers spotted a loan young female elephant on his way back to camp after a bush breakfast. Getting out of the vehicle he saw that the calf, who was about two and a half years had an injury to her back hind leg. Speaking to the guides in camp it became clear that this calf had been seen on its own for the previous week or so and had been abandoned by her month.

Piers then called the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust who run the elephant orphanage in Nairobi and spoke to Linah and Angela Sheldrick at 12pm.They asked him to take some pictures of the calf to check that it was young enough for them to rescue and be able to fit into an aeroplane. Piers took the pictures and then raced across Meru National Park to ask the senior warden for permission for the Sheldrick’s to come and rescue the calf. The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) at the park and Angela were all incredibly helpful and supportive of the rescue. Despite the red tape involved a green light was granted and by 3pm a Cessna Caravan was taking off from Wilson Airport in Nairobi with a rescue team headed by Abdi from the elephant orphanage.

Meanwhile the KWS team in the park with the help of the Offbeat guides had located the calf and had begun the process of the capture. The plane took just under an hour to get to the park and by 4.30pm Abdi, his team and KWS had captured the calf, checked her over, given her some antibiotics and loaded her in the back of a pick-up truck. And so her journey to the amazing Sheldrick elephant orphanage had begun....

It took about 30 minutes to drive back to the Mulika airstrip and then a further 45 minutes or so to load the calf on the plane...no easy feat as at 2.5 years old she only just fitted in through the side doors. However at around 6pm, just two hours after the plane had landed she was on her way to Nairobi.  Landing at just after 8pm and after being re-loaded into the back of a pick-up the poor calf then had the pleasure of Nairobi traffic and the drive from Wilson to the Sheldrick elephant orphanage on the edge of Nairobi National Park.

So less than nine hours from Piers’ first phone call to Angela the calf, by now named Murera, had been in two cars and an aeroplane and had been handled by about 20 different humans....what a fright you may think. However the sanctuary of the orphanage and the safety she must have felt meant that she settled in well and begun to drink milk. The vets have since checked her over and not only is her back right hand leg dislocated below the knee she also has a hole much bigger than a human finger in the sole of her back left foot. Poor Murera is in a serious condition and likely to have fallen down a hole with a snare in it, thus damaging both hind legs. It will be touch and go if she makes it, but she would not have lasted much longer on her own and now has the best possible care you could imagine.

Special thanks to all the help of the elephant rescue team from the Sheldrick orphanage, KWS in Meru National Park, Boskovoic Air and Offbeat Meru camp.....fingers crossed Murera pulls through her ordeal and we will keep you posted on her developments.

The work of Daphne Sheldrick and her team over the years speaks volumes and if you would like more information on the orphanage or would like to donate money by sponsoring an elephant calf please visit http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/index.asp.

It has only been ten days since I left my chaotic London life. Once in Kenya I then caught a small, cute aeroplane to my final destination; Meru airport. There my friend Harriet met me along with some giraffe who were waiting on the land strip. On my way to the camp, and with my mouth still wide open from the spectacular landing in the heart of Kenya, I could see the first inhabitants of the park: a family of elephants wallowing in a muddy area of the river, some wáterbuck, 2 kudu and a few dik-diks amoung other species.

Then, three men  from the camp wearing some traditional costumes, welcomed me with a glass of fresh passion fruit juice and a cold towel. Harriet showed me to my tent and around the site. I could only said: “wow! Am I in Kenya?” I must admit that this is my first time in Kenya and I haven´t been elsewhere in the country yet, however this spot is just spectacular. The tents are surrounded by big bushes, a river, a rich variety of birds, and the occasional visit of friendly baboons.

During my first days in the camp I met many members of the staff, all of them really friendly and helpful. On my first game drive we enjoyed a bush breakfast, where I saw elephants, buffalos, cheetah and lots of funny baboons. On our way back we crossed paths with lots of zebras; I love these animals, they are so adorable and individual with their perfectly striped lines.

In the evenings we did” sundowners” and before dinner, Jonathan showed us how to read the  constalations. The sky at night here is so clear that it seems to me like a painting

On Tuesday Harriet and I picked up some Borana dancers at their small village. I felt so lucky when they showed me their traditional houses, kitchen and crafts. After that, they danced and sang to the guests in camp, especially to a young couple who had become engaged only two days before, here in the camp. Everyone joined in and loved it. What a lucky family! An engagement, Borana dancing and also seeing so many animals and brids they could hardly believe it! They saw the Big 5 and cheetah on 4 separate days … including once on a bush walk!

Coming from London, the first days I was a bit shocked and felt as though I was in a different planet, I was a bit confused and bewildered. Soon I settled in, and I now  see how peaceful and beautiful this place is. It’s a place where I don´t need to wear a watch, where I don´t need to rush to the “tube”, where people don’t stress and push for their place in the rat race. Its a place instead where time stands still, where the peace and tranquility is an antidote for the noise of big city life, where animals and nature come to you and, above all, where I wake up every day thinking how lucky I am and how glad I am to have made the decision to come out here and visit my friend. 

Sabela Lopez

December plans changed dramatically but the 8-18^th set departure was a memorable safari and came close to calamity for me.

The weather turned just in time to produce glorious grass and game under blue skies: perfect safari weather. Sadly only a small group mustering, seven total. The Olare Lamun area I shall rename giraffe shire. We saw well over one hundred in two days. The Olare orok produced lion and leopard on our first evening before dark and after showers  and the thirty miles ride, what a day! We saw plenty more lion and a total of four leopards in the week.

The highlight for me was doing something I hector people never to do: namely falling off in front of a charging animal. In this case it was a hippo who was quite rightly upset that I got between him and his water on the Olare orok. I turned but there was a blockage of horses on a narrow trail behind me and the hippo bumped my horse from behind and caused a huge leap forward  which with  the help of a looshish girth had me sliding off my horse thinking I was landing on his head. Instinct told me to lie still as I was facing away and I adopted the foetal position and lay there. Waiting for the next  phase of my life I had many thoughts run through my head in a micro second; what the sound of hippo teeth on my rib cage would be like, being one of them. Then I heard huffing and puffing inches from my ear before he pushed me with his snout about three or four feet. Suddenly there was silence and I lay for some few seconds not daring to move in case he was still standing over me. A slow head turn and glance behind told me he had gone back to the water.He had not bitten me!  My horse meanwhile had raced back to the others, rider-less and with his saddle half way round his side. The voices of the other people sounded frantic, until I appeared with torn shirt and a little ashen. Bruised ribs and damaged ego were the only legacy and I have done two more safaris since.

Christmas was spent at Deloraine with a historic reunion of descendants of the Scott and Sladen families who built Deloraine and Fintry next door in 1920. Geraldine Macoun (nee Sladen) at 94 is the last surviving member of the original five children who moved onto the land with their parents  and created farms from bush after the First World War. A great time was had with church at Turi School on Christmas morning and various rides and outings were arranged over three days.

January promises to be excellent as well.