Wednesday, 25th May, 2016

25th – 31st May, 2016

Segera Retreat, Laikipia, Rift Valley, Kenya

If you like food, go to Segera. That is it. Full stop, the end. Oh, also if you like everything else, like animals, planes (they have the plane that is in the movie Out of Africa in their aircraft hanger), croquet, swimming, and everything else that is fun. Did I also say making beaded anythings?

Segera is an awesome place. We all agreed this place has the best food of all time. The chef is called Elizabeth, and my favourite meal here is the Peking duck. Nice crispy  skin. Nice tender meat. Makes my mouth water because it is so good. Anyway, enough with the food, it is making me hungry.

The property is really big, the land is about 50,000 acres, with the lodge in the middle. All the villas are hidden from each other, which is a 2-story huge house/villa, with a private pool as well. The main building has two floors. The lower floor is where you eat brekky, the higher level being the ‘Explorer’s Lounge’, a place with heaps of stuff from the past, including a German bible from 1730 about 1 cubit long. The main pool is where you can play croquet, and make your own pizza. We made pizza twice, and it was great.

Now to the animals. Big cats are often seen here, so  you would expect good sightings. In 6 days we saw 2 cheetahs, 11 lions, and 1 African Wild Cat. The 2 guides we had, Elvis and David, were really good. David was the ‘veteran’ of the lodge: he had already finished his guide training, which can take longer than 10 years. In total, we saw 52 Lions in Africa, which  is pretty incredible, considering  they are so rare.

While we were there, we had the most exciting quiz and treasure hunt. The quiz had 101 questions about nature, and Nicky and I got 99/101. The treasure hunt was fantastic, it consisted of 13 clues, spread out across the huge lodge, and the 13th clue led you to treasure. Our treasure was an ‘I love Kenya pin,’ pencil, notepad, and Elizabeth’s chocolate chip biscuits. It was great fun.

You can have picnics by one of the 4 rivers that runs through segera, visit a waterfall, do archery like the Masai warriors do, and so much more.

They had this building dedicated to the ‘4 C s’, called the C4C room. The C’s stand for Community, Culture, Conservation, and Commerce. This is like a sort of Museum, with a lot of cow tails and the skeleton of a Patas monkey, of which there are only 12 left in Segera. The room is also where we made the beaded anythings. And the room is nice to go to after a hot afternoon (it is cool in there).

This was the last stop in Africa, so it was a little bit sad, but Segera was a great way to leave Africa.

Ta Ta,

I will be writing about San Sebastian next week.

Ashman