Samburu Sopa Lodge

Samburu Sopa Lodge stands on high ground inside Samburu National Reserve, looking over the shrubland to the hills beyond, at the end of a 21 km game-drive road from the tarmac at Archer's Post. Its 60 rooms are in 15 two-bedroom cottages modelled on Samburu houses and set in an arc around a waterhole, with a gap left so animals can walk in to drink. Each room has two queen beds and a veranda facing the water, and the two rooms nearest reception are adapted for wheelchair users. The lounge has no front or side walls, and it shares the view of the waterhole with a large free-form pool, a children's pool and a sunken bar. Game drives look for the Samburu Special Five, the Grevy's zebra, reticulated giraffe, Beisa oryx, Somali ostrich and gerenuk of Kenya's dry north, along with elephant, the big cats and more than 350 bird species. In the evening Sopa runs stargazing sessions with telescopes and a small planetarium. Most of the staff come from the surrounding communities. Flights from Wilson land at Samburu Oryx airstrip, ten minutes from the lodge, and the drive from Nairobi takes about six hours.