Within moments of being picked up by our driver at Finch Hattons Airstrip near Tsavo West National Park, a Somali ostrich dashed across the road in front of the safari vehicle. He was a massive bird, a big guy standing at least 8 feet tall, and with his claws he stirred and scraped the Kenyan ground, sending up miniature clouds of dry, rust-colored earth that is a hallmark of the late-year dry season of East Africa.
Then the oversized flightless bird began twirling and stamping around, looking much like an awkward ballerina, its soft, flowing feathers, ebony-black under the equatorial sun, fluttering in the wind. From behind a huge bush, a hen appeared, her brown plumage far less showy than her rooster counterpart’s, but apparently impressed by her mate’s fancy dance. For a few moments, the birds preened and pirouetted together, heads a’bobbin’, before fully noticing the Land Rover, and then the startled duo disappeared lightning-quick over a rise, leaving only poofs of dust in their wake.
After a long game drive during which my husband and I rode past towers of giraffe, small herds of zebra jumbled together with wildebeest, kudu, gerenuk and a few more ostriches, Richard Yegon, our driver, pulled the four-by-four into Finch Hattons, a safari camp in the heart of Tsavo West National Park, some 200 miles southeast of Nairobi.
On the slow journey over bumpy roads from the airstrip to the tented camp that would be our home for the next few days, Richard explained that we had seen three of the “special five” of Tsavo, the Somali ostrich, the longnecked giraffe, and lesser kudu, adding we were missing only the fringe-eared oryx and striped hyena that completed the quintet.
“Other parks have their own special five,” he said. “But none are to be confused with the big five, which are known because they are animals that will fight back.”
The more well-known big five to which Richard referred are the Cape buffalo, rhinoceros, elephant, lion and leopard, all large species known to be dangerous and which tourists hope to see on any African safari.
There is no shortage of the big five in Tsavo, including the descendants of the two so-called man-eating lions made notorious in John Patterson’s “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo,” the 1907 book that would inspire the 1996 film “The Ghost and the Darkness.” The lions purportedly slew anywhere from 28 to 135 construction workers, depending upon whose account you believe, who were building a bridge across the Tsavo River at the turn of the last century. Patterson killed the lions, and the once-feared, now-taxidermized duo eventually were sold to the Field Museum in Chicago, where they remain on display.
Enthralled by the romantic allure of Africa, all things “Out of Africa,” and quite truthfully, the story of the Tsavo lions, we came to Finch Hattons on a journey borne of my insatiable love affair with Kenya and African wildlife, plus I’ve long been a fan of Karen Dinesen Blixen, the Danish author of the autobiographical “Out of Africa” who lived in colonial Kenya from 1914 until the failure in 1931 of the coffee plantation she owned.
Here’s the very short-story connection between Blixen and Finch Hattons. Karen Dinesen was wed to Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke of Sweden. The newlyweds then moved to Kenya. When that marriage ended in divorce, her next significant other was the British-born aristocrat Denys Finch-Hatton, a big-game hunter and adventurer who also lived in Kenya. Reportedly he was quite handsome and was also the consummate charmer of women, including Karen Blixen, and later author Beryl Markham. His and Blixen’s romance was more well documented than her marriage to the baron, probably because of the big screen version of “Out of Africa” and Robert Redford’s portrayal of his enviable, carefree if not dashing lifestyle that helped catapult their love story into legend. When Finch Hattons, the camp, opened, it was named in his honor.
Our first-day arrival time at Finch Hattons coincided with lunch, light fare of local fruits, soup and cheese served on an open-air terrace and where we were serenaded by what had to be ten thousand birds. More than 600 avian species call Tsavo home, and it seemed that half of them lived at Finch Hattons. Graceful egrets, bright sapphire-hued superb starlings and weavers in jewel tones of blue, yellow and red flitted about the camp, while crocodiles lurked in a small lake near the dining area. Always I kept my eyes and ears attuned for reptilian movement in case we had to make a quick getaway.
Even though it was midday, beyond the lake and across the horizon I saw the dark clouds of a monstrous thunderstorm cropping up.
“Looks like it’s going to rain,” I told Jonathan Mutisya, the congenial camp manager who’s been at Finch Hattons for three decades.
“No,” he laughed good-naturedly at my mistake. “That’s Kilimanjaro.”
The massive snowcapped mountain, always shortened around these parts to simply Kili, and its shadows are so dark and high into the Kenyan and Tanzanian skyline – Kili shares a border with both countries but officially is a part of Tanzania – that I was certain it was rainstorm. But even if Kili is occluded by cloud cover, you absolutely know it’s there, standing sentry, and majestically, over the African landscape.
Tsavo is Kenya’s oldest and largest national park, dating to 1848 and adding up to some 8,400 square miles, give or take, and which, Richard pointed out on our drive in, is larger than some European countries. Each day at Finch Hattons, we woke to Tsavo’s cool breezes, the equatorial sun ablaze in gold over the eastern sky, ready to explore the vast park and hunt for the ancestors of Patterson’s man-eating lions, here in their own kingdom, of more than a century ago.
Tsavo is a place of stunning scenery, of untouched wilderness of bubbling springs and green hills and open savannas, but also of absolute pastoral quiet. One morning, we took off for a half-day’s drive around Tsavo with Richard and Jonathan. With only the whispering wind as our companion, we never saw another soul or even heard another vehicle. I honestly thought that we could have easily been the last people on earth.
That’s the magic of Tsavo. It isn’t as crowded with camps as are some places in the Masai Mara or the Serengeti, so there is no competition for solitude and space. Richard drove slowly, so that the herds of elephant, zebra and giraffe barely gave us a glance, and there were moments when the African plains stretched so far, I was convinced I was looking out over creation.
The romance of Finch Hattons is that it pays homage to not only Tsavo’s beauty, but also one of the greatest love stories of the 20th century. With only 17 tented suites, complete with en suite bathroom and private verandas, it offers a truly authentic and intimate safari experience. All meals are included, with breakfast and lunch served on the open-air terrace, with dinner a six-course elegant affair. Of note, longtime chef Kennedy Karembu makes a buttery red snapper that’s so memorable I thought of it for days afterward.
While the highlights of a Finch Hattons stay are the game and nature drives, take advantage of the opportunities for bush walks and outings to places like Mzima Springs, the incredibly scenic Chyulu Hills, nearby Amboseli National Park known for its great herds of elephants or even a Maasai village for a chance to absorb the local culture. Within the camp itself are a spa, a swimming pool, a library and a cigar bar. With no light pollution, the nights offer a mesmerizing view of the galaxy as it lights up with countless stars and constellations.
As luck would have it, the lion proved elusive on our journey to Tsavo, but we did see the more social cheetah and leopard. We still talk of the missed lions, and how, in a place as tranquil as Tsavo, not seeing them really didn’t matter at all.
———
If you go
For more information on Finch Hattons Luxury Tented Camp, visit www.finchhattons.com. Our travel agent worked with Cheli & Peacock, a Nairobi-based tour operator, for land arrangements and air connections from Nairobi through Safarilink. Visit www.chelipeacock.com for details. Kenya Airways is the only airline that offers nonstop flights from the U.S. at JFK to Nairobi. KLM, Air France and British Airways offer connecting service through Amsterdam, Paris and London, respectively. For up-to-date information on visa, passport and COVID-19 requirements, visit www.kenyaembassydc.org.
____
