Ol Pajeta Conservancy

It’s 9:45 am, I am getting dressed for a meeting scheduled for 10:00 am so I am late. My phone starts receiving message notifications. First I thought it was my partner asking me where I am (one was from him though) only to realise I had three different messages from three friends and a tag on Facebook notifying me that Sudan was dead.  On Sunday my friends and I drove to Ol Pajeta Conservancy, just a kilometre before you get to Nanyuki to see the last male, white northern rhino Sudan and the last two females.

We did not get to see him because he was ill and was being given time and space away from visitors. We, however, did get to go for a game drive, visit the chimpanzee sanctuary. The sanctuary is home to chimps that have been rescued from all over the world from circuses or poachers. These chimps have hammocks built for them to relax and enjoy the view because they are high up. These chimps seem to have better ways to relax than I do, they get to watch the sunset from that hammock, I am envious.

I had never been on a game drive before, so this was super exciting for me. It is one thing seeing an elephant kilometres away from you, and it’s another thing seeing it right next to the car. You start coming up with different scenarios, but the only plan out of each is drive as fast as you can disregarding the rule that says you cannot drive faster than 40km/hr. Luckily none of the scenarios happened, I mean I am here writing haha. Driving near an obstinacy of buffalos. I know we share a name (Mbogo is buffalo in Kikuyu) but I never want to see a buffalo near me in my life. We came across one that kept giving us the eye, at some point, I thought it would charge (I cannot imagine being killed by one of my own).

There is no shortage of flora and fauna at Ol Pajeta, we came across an animal we could not agree on what it was, and I still cannot name it. There were black rhinos, plain zebras, antelopes, impalas and gazelles (I am yet to learn how to tell them apart) and gravy zebras (their stripes are brown, not black. A question though, is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes?), and some birds that I cannot remember. We were not lucky enough to see the hippos because the river Ewaso Nyiro had too much water and we did not see lions.

Ol pajeta is a beautiful place for a chilled out game drive. The guards are super friendly, apart from the last guard who took us to see Baraka the blind rhino; she was super moody and arrogant. Everything else though was amazing. There is a Morani restaurant price are affordable, and the view is amazing, a sundowner at that spot is pure bliss. The entry fee is sh.1100 per person, and a car entry fee of sh.400 for a six seater or less and anything above a six-seater is sh1200. All rates can be accessed on their website, and they do respond to phone calls.