Better Than Disney

Linda Lou Burton posting from Sweetwaters Serena Camp, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Nanyuki, Kenya – Ol Pejeta Conservancy is – well, it’s better than Disneyland! For animal lovers – it offers more than any zoo you’ve ever been to. For nature lovers – it offers more change of scene than any hike you’ve ever walked in the remotest of hills. For sheer accomplishment and impact, well, read on, in fact, go to THEIR website and spend the day learning about this magnificent place on the Equator in the foothills of Mt Kenya. https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/

Here are a few basics about Ol Pejeta.

• It’s a not-for-profit wildlife conservancy in Central Kenya’s Laikipia County, providing “innovative, tangible, sustainable conservation for wildlife and people.”
• It’s big, and broad – 90,000 acres containing 4 key habitats (plains, riverine, wetlands and mixed acacia bushland), hundreds of species and thousands of animals, and is surrounded by a population of more than 50,000 people.
• It’s home to the Big Five – lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhinoceros – as well as giraffes, hippos, hyenas, baboons, and endangered species like the African wild dog, cheetah and oryx.
• It’s the largest black rhino sanctuary in East Africa, with a population of over 140 black rhinos, a critically endangered species.
• It’s home to the world’s last two remaining northern white rhinos. Najin, 32, and her daughter Fatu, who is in her twenties, live in a 700-acre 24-hour secured enclosure. The last male of the species, Sudan, died in 2018.
• It’s the only place in Kenya to see chimpanzees, in a sanctuary established to rehabilitate animals rescued from the black market.
• It’s home to a herd of 6,000 bush-savvy purebred Boran cattle. Livestock-wildlife integration is beneficial to the grassland as bunched grazing breaks hardpan soil and fertilizes the ground.
• It’s supporting the people living around its borders through infrastructure and economic projects and education and healthcare efforts.

Good news for you, and me, Ol Pejeta welcomes and embraces visitors! It offers nine tented camps (Globus booked us into Sweetwaters Serena), lodges and homestays, and five campsites. Do you want pampered luxury and table-waited dining, or camping in the wild (you know, those middle-of-the night sounds when animals scratch around your tent)? Either way, you’ll wake up surrounded by NATURE, with the chance of more adventure than, well, that other place I mentioned.

And the RIDES at Ol Pejeta are in open-air 4x4s splashing through rocky creekbeds in pursuit of the latest reported elephant sighting, or pausing to watch a baby rhino and its mom feeding in the quiet of wide-open spaces, or the dark of night when the spotter’s light catches a lion couple in repose.

It’s a Trip Advisors Travelers Choice again this year, and 100% of profits from tourist dollars are reinvested into conservation and community development. A visit isn’t just good for you, it’s good for Kenya’s natural heritage, and its people.

The Animals: Ol Pejeta Wildlife https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/wildlife/

The Projects: Ol Pejeta Conservation https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/conservation/

Places to Stay and Things To Do: Ol Pejeta Escapes https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/ol-pejeta-escapes/

Get Involved Wherever You Are:  https://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/get-involved/