Category: Destinations

After a two hour drive through rural mountain villages in a decommissioned Russian army truck, we arrived at El Nicho conservation area—a nature lover’s dream with hiking trails and a panoramic backdrop of the Escambray mountains.

Tourists are a rare sight in the villages of rural Cuba. Locals ran out of their houses, waving, trying out their English, shouting the carefully enunciated “How are you?” The few vehicles were primarily horse drawn carts, farmers plowed fields with horses and I was surprised to see a number of cowboys on horseback.

The traditionally dressed Samburu guide greeted me in Swahili “Jambo (hello), my name is Lewya, think of Halleluiah,” he said with an enormous grin. He met our small plane after a brief 45 minute flight crossing the equator, the landing a smooth one on the short Muridjo airstrip at Ol Malo Conservancy in Kenya.

Dry smoky air, pounding hooves and the constant snorting of wildebeests welcomed us as we loaded our gear into the waiting safari jeep and drove on rough pothole-filled gravel roads (our driver referred to the journey as the “Kenyan massage”) towards our lodge for the next couple of days.