Highlights of the Chyulu Hills, Kenya

By Roxanne Reid
Somewhere between Tsavo East and Amboseli national parks in south-eastern Kenya you’ll find the green Chyulu Hills, where we began our East African adventure. Snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro hovers on the horizon, a backdrop to classic landscapes of lone umbrella trees and open plains. Here are some of the highlights of the Chyulu Hills area.

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ol Donyo Lodge

When you’ve driven past Mount Kilimanjaro and the volcanic Chyulu Hills, past open plains dotted with umbrella acacias, gazelle, zebra and giraffe, you come to Great Plains Conservation’s ol Donyo Lodge and find a private rim-flow pool on your verandah. It overlooks a waterhole where we saw big bull elephants, zebra, warthog and antelope. There’s also a hide near the waterhole for a closer look. Our room was a palace with wonderful views of the mountains and plains, and a star bed upstairs for enjoying the night sky. Chef Tim turned out amazingly sophisticated and delicious food here too – definitely a highlight each day.

Maasai guide

Konee Kinyaku was our guide at ol Donyo lodge and he was happy to answer all our questions about his Maasai culture and traditions. As he talked about the animals we spotted, he explained that there’s lots of good conservation work going on in the area, with anti-poaching activities and compensation plans in place for cows killed by predators. This stops the Maasai killing predators in retribution. Konee made a wonderfully relaxed and charismatic model too.

View of Mount Kilimanjaro

Photo courtesy of Great Plains Conservation and ol Donyo

I’m unlikely ever to climb Kilimajaro, the dormant volcano that is Africa’s highest mountain at 4 900 metres. Although the oldest woman to get to the top was 86, so there’s plenty time left for me, it’s not really the kind of thing I enjoy putting my body through; I’d rather admire it from a distance. Kili is over the border in Tanzania, but it looms large over the landscape in Kenya’s Chyulu Hills. We were thrilled to see it on our first day, stretching high into the sky and topped with snow; the next two days we were at ol Donyo it was hidden by clouds.

Horse riding

You can go horse riding at any of the Great Plains Conservation camps in Kenya, but for the Masaai Mara camps you need to be of an intermediate or advanced standard. Luckily, at ol Donyo you can be a rank beginner like me, only once on a horse before. The pace is slow as you ride out among zebras and giraffes, accepted by them as just another (albeit strange-looking) animal. When we were there, there was some excitement when cheetahs gave one of the horses a bit of a fright, but its good training kicked in and it quickly recovered its senses. Two guides help and protect you so that even children older than 12 can safely go riding.

Gerenuk

I’ll never forget seeing my first gerenuk in the Chyulu Hills. A strange creature we don’t get in Southern Africa, it looks like a cross between an impala and an ostrich with its long neck and small head. The Swahili word for this antelope is swala-twiga, meaning ‘giraffe-antelope’, which seems appropriate. The gerenuk can stand upright on its back legs to feed on higher leaves, something made possible by a modified ball joint in the hip. It’s very unusual and quite comical. Only males have horns.

Baby giraffes

Another first for us was the Maasai giraffe, a different subspecies to the Southern giraffe we see in South Africa and Botswana or the Thornicroft’s giraffe in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park. Since giraffes across Africa are under threat, with populations declining by 40% in the past 30 years, it was a special pleasure to see this sweet scene with a number of baby Maasai giraffes in the Chyulu Hills. 

Cheetahs

Cheetahs are among my favourite animals so seeing two of these sleek creatures relaxing under the trees not far from camp was special. This area in the Chyulu Hills is very open so there’s little cover for cheetahs to use as they stalk their prey – mainly Thompson’s gazelles. Our guide explained that because of this they have become nocturnal hunters here whereas they’re usually diurnal.

Maasai village

Our guide Konee took us to a Maasai village to learn more about his people. It was not a short journey, but the scenery of hills and plains was beautiful, including a couple of green-grassed calderas (craters of a volcano). We also spotted animals like martial eagle, eland, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, elephant and Koke’s hartebeest. The women of the village, dressed in colourful beads and shukas (a kind of kikoy worn by the Maasai), welcomed us with song before we went inside one of the houses through a very low door and tightly curved tunnel. There in the dark, in a hut that smelt of wood smoke, we talked about children and the duties of men and women in the Maasai culture.

Sundowners in style

Sunset in Africa is always a magical time and this one in the Chyulu Hills was no exception. Completing the scene were gin and tonics, a Maasai warrior and flat-topped umbrella trees that are so much part of a classic Kenyan landscape in the wild. The trees made a photogenic silhouette; all that was missing was a Maasai giraffe.

Conservation and community

As with all Great Plains Conservation properties in Africa, thought has been given to both conservation and the community. Ol Donyo lodge is on the 275 000-acre Mbirikani Group Ranch owned by 4 000 Maasai and it’s to them that Great Plains Conservation pays lease fees. These and a per-person conservancy fee go directly to the community to encourage them to conserve the land and its wild animals. A bonus is that solar energy, recycling and bio-digesters that turn kitchen waste into energy ensure the camp touches the earth lightly. I love knowing that my presence here benefits the area, its people and wildlife through responsible tourism.

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