Tristan will be at Badminton Horse Trials this week, from Thursday 2nd May, in the African Horse Safari Association (AHSA) Tent. Please do pop in and say hello, have a drink and plan your next safari!

Well the season is now behind us and we are all off around the world on various marketing trips. Piers off to the UK and USA, Tristan to Badminton and Simon and Rosie off to Indaba in Durban. Sadly no rest for the wicked!On top of all this, lots has been going on behind the scenes and we have some very exciting developments happening later in the year....At Offbeat Mara Camp we are thrilled to announce a new long-term manager in Katie Stewart who will be taking over on 1st June. In addition I have finally bitten the bullet and have just ordered a whole new set of sleeping tents. I hope they will be up and running by September/October. These are much more spacious tents, and 2 of them will be family tents with an extra bedroom for the children all under one roof. The new tents really are stunning and I cant wait for them to be full of guests! I also have a brand new 6 seater open-sided landcruiser on order so exciting times in the Mara. Offbeat Meru will also be getting a family tent and Sosian are converting one of their rooms into a family suite so we will now be properly family friendly!!More news and pictures of the new tents/rooms to follow soonI hope to see some of you on my travels in the next 6 weeksPiers

Could you please let me know how and what you are doing in order to contribute to the local community?

 We are the only camp in the Bisinadi National Reserve; we pay a community fee per guest (5 USD)  that goes to Isiolo county council and that goes back into the direct communities of Kinna and Rapsu. However, this could change due to devolution and we need to wait to figure out what happens here. But at the moment this money is supposed to be directed into health care, schools, and infrastructure in these communities. This has been the case since the camp opened.

 

50 % of our staff are from the direct communities so we help to provide employement.

 

We run the Guba Dida Primary School Project, which is a charity off our own back. Started up a couple of years ago by PFW Safaris and Harriet Scott. We stock school supplied in our shop and then we also collect donations from our guests. We save the donations until the end of the season until we have enough to complete a project. For example; last season we had saved enough to build 20 tables, chairs and lockable desks for the school. We also provide text books, pens, and pencils.

 

How the projects work: We have a meeting with the Headmaster at the beginning of each season, and he tells us what the school needs, and then we save money towards that.

 

This season we did something different. We had a donation from “Thousand Pairs Of Little Shoes” (Renata Kecskes) of 200 pairs of Shoes for the children at the school. In fitting these shoes we discovered that the health of 10 children was not very good at all. They had been terribly affected by Jiggers among other things. So we approached Harriet Scott who works at the Norland Place School in the UK (Harriet used to manage Offbeat Meru Camp and was a key figure in starting the school project). They managed to raise an incredible amount of money which has paid for the treatment of all of these children, and health talks to improve hygiene and care at home. This donation will also fund the next project starting in June. We plan to provide study lights for the children from year 6 to year 8 so that they may study at home and improve their grades. We plan to provide these study lights to the teachers as well so that they can mark papers at home in the evenings, and therefore have more teaching time during the day.

 

Our Second Projects was started off directly through one member of staff from the camp. We have given him the means to set up his own vegetable garden in Kinna, which the women run. This has been a great success and they have managed to harvest fantastic quality lettuce, peppers, and chilies. We have introduced butternut now and eggplant and hoping to see the results next season. The idea  is once the garden is up and running at a productive rate they can sell these vegetables to the 3 other main lodges and camps in Meru National Park. It is sustainable and also provides the community with food too!

 

What systems you currently have in place to make the camp more eco-friendly.

 

1. We have no running water so on average each guest only uses 20-40 litres of water. Therefore we are very conservative on how much river water we extract.
2. Each guest tent is run off solar electricity; Using small solar panels to run four lights in each tent (We have 6 guest tents)
3. We use the generator for, on average, a couple of hours in the morning and then again a couple of hours in the evening. This allows us to charge phones, cameras etc and run the office.
4. It is a tented camp which means that it is not a permanent structure in the reserve (Apart from the pool, everything else is canvas)
5. We support the “Throttle the bottle campaign” and are awaiting to receive our order of aluminum personalized water bottles for guest use. The idea of this project is to get rid of as many plastic bottles as possible. Once we receive these re-usable bottles we will encourage each guest to re-fill their water bottle throughout the day from the water dispenser and therefore cut down on the use of plastic dramatically.

 

Wow Wow Wow! This is the only place to be right now! Blue, blue skies, warm days, cool nights, green grass, not too many tourists and fantastic special offers!

The Mara is looking amazing and Mara North is in fantastic condition. Those lucky enough to be here right now and seeing Big Cat sightings as good as we ever get. The Offbeat Pride are in great shape - the 3 big males are all in the Valley at the moment and can be seen most mornings and evenings and certainly heard every night. Off our 5 females, one has taken herself off to Maternity Rocks and we are hopefull some cubs may be seen soon. The other 5 girls we hope are pregnant so in a few months time we may have lots of new members to the pride - right in time for opening in June for our migration season. The current Full Moon has meant hunting for them has been harder, but they are in great condition and onwards and upwards for this very special pride of lions.

Cheetah sightings have been equally good. The female with the two 6-7 month cubs has been in our neck of the woods this past week and they have been seen strolling through the camp and we have witnessed two kills in the last week. Very lucky indeed for the guests.

There is a female Leopard in the Ngorbop valley just a mile or so from camp that has provided great viewing in the last few days. She killed a female impala yesterday and we watched her devour it and then witnessed the very quick growth of her tummy!! I doubt she will move for a few days! Sammy also had a fright this morning as he was seeing off guests at 6.00am when our resident Leopard shot past him on the path up to the Mess tent!

We had a big rain storm last week and this has helped green up the grass and large numbers of plains game have piled into the valley and Top Plains - 100's of Zebra and Eland in particular. A 13 strong herd of elephant has also been in the valley all week too. In times of rising fuel prices - the animals are really helping as game drives do not have to go far to see all these magnificant animals.

I am down here until end March so I will check in again on here soon

 

Piers

The grass is drying up and the days are hot again. Clear blue skies make the typical evening, but it is cooler than normal which makes the evening drinks by the fire a perfect finish to the day. With the crisp mornings; a brisk start to the day! The game sightings this week have been great.

A couple of days ago another female cheetah was spotted with her two cubs, guessed to be about five months old. The cheetahs in the park seem to be doing well although we haven’t spotted the cheetah brothers in a while. Now that the grass is clearing up a bit it is much easier to spot the cats and each day we are seeing more and more.

Daphne Sheldricks’ Wildlife trust has moved its’ mobile veterinary clinic into the park which is great news for all of us here in Meru. With their motto of “giving wildlife a second chance” and their unfailing commitment we can rest easy knowing that caring hands are at the ready for any animal that needs attention. Just the other week they were working on one of the Rhinos in the sanctuary which had quite a nasty wound on its bottom. The Mobile Veterinary Unit promptly attended to the Rhino which is now fully recovered. Good to know for any of you in Meru who might spot an injured animal (Dr. Rono’s number is 0721 234 188).

We catch the odd glimpse of Banoffee who is now old enough to start exploring a bit more. It is sad to say goodbye, but lovely to have seen her develop into a healthy, grown bush buck.

If you have been following facebook, you will see that Frank (the Giraffe) is back; bringing along the occasional girlfriend. The running joke is that he brings her into camp to impress her, but is met by an unanticipated reception of the surprise - when the female bolts off looking back at him with a scornful glare. I don’t think he realizes that, although he has become so accustomed to us all, his female companions are still quite wild!

Our two big resident buffalo are back in camp. No doubt to mow the garden! We are greeted with a very fresh cake of their morning’s business daily, as if to show exactly where they have been during the early hours. Makes for a fun game of “dodge ‘m” on the way to the mess tent or car park first thing in the morning! Wouldn’t want to step in it that’s for sure; some people might spend their first hour of the day scooping up puppy poop, well it’s a bit different here!

We had a very exciting day’s fishing on the river just in front of camp, nearly breaking the catfish record, however, didn’t quite manage to get the trophy in! Celine was to be the record breaker with a whopping catfish (probably 3 feet long) but in the moment, and what a fight it was putting up; the line broke. But it wasn’t all over.........as it managed in its fight to wrap the line around a tree. With a bit of encouragement Sean leapt in, somewhat like a hippo, he landed on his bum and made a gracious entrance into the river, and then wadded towards the line. Much to all of our surprise he grabbed the line along with the whopper of a cat fish! Everyone was hysterical. However, after his fabulous effort, the catfish, with a whip of its tail; broke free and swam up stream. No one was left disappointed though and everyone had a fabulous abdominal work out with all the laughter.

That's all for now.....

Salaams,

Tanyth, Sean and the Offbeat Meru team.

Despite occasional signs of rain and thunder, the weather here in Mara North continues to be sunny and dry. We’ve still got some time to go before the long rains are due and there is still plenty of juicy green grass for the herbivores. Wildebeest are starting to calve and our guests have witnessed the miracle of new life several times already. 

The Offbeat pride lions have unfortunately been very unlucky with their offspring, as none of the cubs have survived for some time now. The last cubs they successfully reared and sent off  were born nearly 4 years ago. It’s certainly not for the lack of trying – even as we speak we have two honeymooning lion couples along the hillside. Fingers crossed that cubs are born and they survive.

On the other hand, the local cheetah mothers have been very good at bringing up their young. The young cheetah whose birth and journey of growing into a fine young man we’ve followed for 14 months now, is about ready to leave his mother. The mother is currently being courted by an adult male and this suggests her young son will be leaving her shortly.

Another female cheetah, Narasha, gave birth to four young some 6 months ago. She’s successfully reared two of the four and they have now returned to Mara North. The family of three have been seen around Offbeat Mara camp a lot in the past couple of week, the mother keeping very busy with bringing food to the table. Earlier this week she hunted successfully three times in one day! Unfortunately a hyena grabbed her first meal but the other two she and her offspring devoured. 

Leopard sightings around the camp continue to be very good – on Wednesday Joseph and Kapeen with their guests barely made it out of the camp before spotting a leopard mother with her sub-adult cub by the river. We’re delighted to know that they’re staying close by.

The past three months have been spectacular, as always in the Mara. While I say goodbye I hope to get to back here soon. 

Kwaheri,

Miia

 

It is hard to find the words to say a big enough thank you:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Norland Place School, in London, UK (thank you Harriet Scott for organising it and making it happen) And Bob and Jean Thorpe have our hearts close to busting with their generosity! 

With their combined donations for the Guba Dida School we can now complete all the pending projects that we had in mind for this YEAR!!!!.... unbelievable! 

So from the entire Offbeat team and the Guba Dida School; 

THANK YOU!!! I promise to keep you all updated and I will post photos every step of the way.

Our Season closes at the end of February, so the main projects will start in June when we re-open.

Salaams as always,

Tanyth, Sean and the Offbeat Meru Team

 

 

There is a spotted hyena den not far from the Offbeat Mara camp and hyenas being very close to my heart, I try and visit the den from time to time to catch up with the guys and see how everybody’s doing. In addition to the adults, there currently are 7 young clan members, ranging from very small pups (under a month old) to juveniles, who would probably be around 4 to 6 months of age. Hyenas are very curious creatures by nature and although initially a bit shy, quickly come out of the den to sniff us out and then carry on with their daily chores. The little pups practice their “whoop” from an early age, although to begin with theirs is a rather shrill and quiet call.

Early Tuesday morning when visiting the den, we were surprised to find a warthog sitting right by the hyena den, with the adults and pups playing about and doing their hyena thing. The warthog was perfectly relaxed and seemed to find the action at the hyena den rather entertaining. Hyenas weren’t bothered (or tempted) by him in the least. We soon discovered that this must be an everyday occurrence to both species as suddenly the rest of the warthog’s family sprang out of what was their home, right next to the hyena den! Mama warthog and 6 young of varying ages appeared and happily trotted off for their day of grazing, led by the father.

The same happened the following morning. The hyenas didn’t bat an eyelid – evidently well used to this arrangement.

 

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone, on behalf
of Offbeat Safaris, and Offbeat Meru for your kind hearts and generous donations.
To all our supporters out there who have generously donated money, brought stationary, bought text books and many other things. 

Yesterday the entire student body of the GubaDida Primary school received: pens, pencils and rubbers. 

The new; year 8 received all the texts books they need in order to complete their syllabus for
this year as well as mathematical sets and rulers. 

The younger children received shoes, and a few toys, some Mr Man books - which they thought were hilarious.

Without your support these children would not have all these things! Yesterday, each and every one of you made a school that much more capable of educating it's students. THANK YOU!

There is some more information and lots of photo's on our facebook page if you are interested: http://goo.gl/KWIXp

Salaams,

Tanyth, Sean and the Offbeat Meru Team. 

 

Offbeat Meru Camp has been ranked number 1 place to stay in Meru National Park on independent site TripAdvisor. Thanks to all your great comments we have finally hit the number coveted number 1 ranking. Please keep the comments coming as would be great to sit at Number 1 as long as possible.

Please click on the link below to see all the great guest reviews

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g608434-d1930558-Reviews-Offbeat_Meru_Camp-Meru_National_Park_Eastern_Province.html