In May 2019 I bought First class tickets on Swiss International to Nairobi for an amazing £3000 for two in February 2020.  When I looked for luxury Kenyan safari lodges, I got down to a shortlist of two: &Beyond Bateleur camp and Mahali Mzuri.  The latter is part of the Virgin group (we had a great safari at their South African outpost, Ulusaba, in 2018).  I eventually chose to go with &Beyond because of their reputation for safaris, the quality of their guides (I’ve been to or read about so many safari lodges who make a big deal about their guides having been trained by &Beyond), and because they were running an offer of free domestic flights if we stayed for more than three nights.  But as someone on the autistic spectrum I had to try to get to grips with the silly name, &Beyond….. it seems the original company was founded in South Africa to provide safaris in South Africa.  As it expanded operations to include destinations beyond the RSA, its named changed to “&Beyond”.  Simples.

We landed at Kichwa Temba airstrip in the northeastern part of the Masai Mara, courtesy of an Air Kenya flight from Nairobi Wilson airport.  Ready to meet us at the airstrip was an &Beyond safari vehicle and a table-clothed table of refreshments. Camp Manager Richard poured us a couple of lovely glasses of pink bubbles, and gently briefed us about our visit, which was going to begin with an afternoon game drive just as soon as we got to the camp.

We could see the camp from the airstrip, at the foot of the Oloololo escarpment, which forms the eastern rim of the Great Rift Valley.  Our ride to the camp was only 15 minutes or so, but it was very bumpy because the dirt tracks had been made very rutted in recent rains. We were told the Mara had had much higher rainfall than normal in the first months of the year, but I noticed during the stay that there is actually a lot of ground water in the Mara; something I hadn’t expected.

At the camp we discovered that it’s divided into two – North and South – and our luxury tent was in the North.  As our stay evolved I couldn’t work out why the separation was needed; each camp had its own lodge, kitchen, bar, dining and sitting areas, plus swimming pool. And our tented suite was actually closer to the Southern facilities, but we had to have all our meals in the Northern dining room.

After dropping our bags and a quick iced coffee, we boarded our comfortable Toyota safari vehicle for the afternoon drive.  The cars come in different set-ups; ours had seating for ten, plus the driver/guide, but there was never more than six guests on our game drives.  We did see some &Beyond cars with just one passenger, and while this might sound “exclusive” I think it’s actually better to have others with you, so you can make new friendships, your conversations can pass the time on long game drives, plus it’s extra pairs of eyes looking out for the wildlife!  I don’t know how Bateleur decides which guests are going to share a vehicle, but you will remain with your new companions for your whole stay, and you will have the same driver/guide too, which is good for building relationships.

Our Guide was called Peter, a sweet local Masai man with incredible eyesight, who was able to identify animals from a long long way off.  We were astounded when he pulled the 4WD over one time to look at a beautifully coloured Lilac Breasted Roller perched near the track, and told us it had a grasshopper in its beak – something the rest of us could only see with our binoculars!

But vision, even when enhanced with binoculars, was severely hampered by the long grass on the plains. The grass was longer than usual, because of the higher rainfall than normal in the past months, so spotting big cats was really difficult.  Our guides had to rely on radio calls from other vehicles to tell us when they’d come across lions sleeping in the grasses.  And even when we got close to a resting pride we only got glimpses of our quarry: there are 5 lions within the picture below!

On our first day Peter asked us if there were any animals we were particularly keen to spot. I and others said “cheetah” and on the second day Peter drove us a long way south towards the border between Kenya and Tanzania (where the Masai Mara becomes the Serengeti) where there’s a better chance of finding a cheetah.

Without any other safari vehicles around to guide us to sightings, it took a long time of scouring the landscape, but finally Peter spotted a cheetah sitting next to a bush on the Serengeti side of the border.  He bravely/cheekily drove us over the border to get closer to it, and he even expertly got us out of trouble within ten minutes, when our Toyota got stuck in a bog. But the picture above shows the best snap I was able to get of my favourite cat, as it walked off into the grasslands.

So big cat sightings were rare and very limited, and we didn’t see a leopard at all. But we did see plenty of the other four of the “big 5”; Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino and Lion.  And there were lots of other animals and birds to admire.

Overall I would say our wildlife encounters were better in South Africa, where we saw a slightly greater variety (all of the big 5) and we appeared to get closer to those animals.  Maybe &Beyond guides deliberately give the animals more distance, for their wellbeing?  Our guide Peter did appear to try hard to get us to see more animals, it’s just that circumstances and the long grass intervened. He even took us out on a night drive close to the camp (with a flash-light holder plus an armed guard), in the hope of seeing lions in a more active state, plus some other nocturnal creatures. But all we saw were hippos grazing (though this was quite exciting) and nervous antelopes.

On our daytime drives we were provided with liquid refreshments when we asked for it, and on the longer journey to the Tanzania border we had a delicious picnic brunch, with Peter frying up bacon on a burner. But in South Africa our refreshment stops were organised as more of a feature of the game drive, and were more lavish in the selection of drinks and snacks on offer.

For me though, the scenery in the Mara is far superior to that in South Africa, in that it offers the quintessential image of Africa – expansive plains of grassland with isolated trees providing rare spots of shade from the equatorial sunshine.

Turning back to Bateleur Camp, I can tell you that most of the tents are identical in size and interior styling. They’re pitched with good surrounding space outside and a spacious interior furnished in a 1930s style, with old fashioned map wallpaper evoking the feeling of the early days of wildlife tourism.  There was a good sized bed, easily sufficient storage space, comfy leather armchairs and a well-stocked comp personal bar.  There was a proper flushing toilet, two wash basins, an in-tent shower and free-standing bathtub, plus an outdoor shower and courtyard.  I found it hard to control the shower temperature (the always available hot water was very hot), but I worked through this first world problem.

Tents do not have air-conditioning, but there is a ceiling fan above the bed.  We kept the tent’s outer cover pulled back all the time, so at night time we just had the (full length) window screens between us and the bush, and we were perfectly comfortable.  But we found that we had too many flying insects inside the tent for comfort and I suspect Housekeeping keeps all the doors opened when they’re cleaning the tents during the day.  Another Housekeeping issue we had was that our towels were not changed during our stay, even after we placed them on the floor, and we didn’t get our mineral waters replenished.  But really these were minor issues in the grand scheme of things – our tents were lovely and comfortable. 8/10.  It seemed odd to us that we didn’t have a key to the tent (but the doors can be locked from the inside), but I guess there’s no need out here.

Each morning we were woken by Dominic, our “tent butler”, who passed coffee and biscuits through a service hatch, at 5.30am!  Then we set off for a game drive in darkness and had the amazing experience of seeing the sun rise over the African savannah.  For about US$400 per person you can take a hot air balloon flight at this time of day too, but I decided that 16 people in a basket wasn’t for me.

After about 4 hours drive we would return to camp for a late breakfast.

We were brought a tray of breads, toast, fruit, juices, yogurt and cold cuts to go with our cereals, plus we could order hot dishes a la carte.  Moses was the name of the North Camp’s chef and he was a lovely friendly man (as indeed were all of the staff – all friendly, not all male!) who regularly walked the tables chatting to guests.  His cooking skills were pretty good all round, but he wasn’t so good at making omelettes.  Moses was able to make up special meal requests, including kids meals, but lunch and dinner were set menus consisting of a soup to start, then a main course and a dessert.  As is often the case with fully inclusive safari camps or lodges, there was more food than we were normally used to, and I would have preferred it if Moses had told us what was on the menu for each day in advance, so we could have requested something lighter if we wanted to. On our last lunchtime Moses served up tacos with all the garnishes which was delicious, not heavy and just perfect for lunch.  Alcohol was included throughout the day, but I noticed that the quality of wines and spirits was not as high as was served at Ulusaba in South Africa.

On one evening, dinner was a BBQ in a tree-surrounded patch of grass within the camp, with a roaring fire and singing and dancing from a group of Masai ‘warriors’, which was fun, but I personally don’t enjoy eating without good lighting at my table, or with insects flying about.

In the two hours between breakfast and lunch, or in the period before an afternoon game drive after lunch, there was a range of things to do, including guided walks in the bush around the camp, hikes up the Oloololo escarpment, walking down to &Beyond’s other property on this site, Kichwa Tembo. It’s a larger facility of villas and rooms just ten minutes’ stroll away, and I found its striking sleek design to be reminiscent of Kerry Hill’s designs for Aman hotels.  Your comp drinks are still available at this other lodge, so we enjoyed a couple of cocktails there one afternoon.  But the best early afternoon excursion we went on was to a close-by Masai village.  It was very interesting to meet these tribal people, to see inside their mud dwellings and to learn about their culture and practices.  Unfortunately at the end of the visit we were ‘invited’ to buy some curios they’d made, and to haggle over the prices. I personally hate haggling in a place where I have no idea of the intrinsic value of anything!  This excursion was an extra US$50 per person, but as &Beyond supports the local villages financially I was very happy to pay that.

One of my my free afternoons I had a massage in their ‘spa tent’ which was really excellently delivered by a lovely lady called Grace.  There was a swimming pool in both camps, but we didn’t make use of them.

On our final day we chose to skip our early morning game drive in favour of a relaxing lie-in in our tent. It was lovely to wake up naturally in a charmingly luxurious tent looking onto the world famous Masai Mara!

After our breakfast we were asked to leave our tent so it could be prepared for new arrivals, and Dominic moved us and our bags to a “family tent” at the other end of North Camp, so we could rest, pack and shower before our early afternoon departure back to Nairobi and onwards to Europe on an overnight flight.  (The family tent was two tents connected by a passageway).

As I noted before, in my humble opinion, the quality of the food and beverages at Ulusaba in South Africa was higher than at Bateleur Camp, but it was more expensive too.  Bateleur’s food was good though, don’t get me wrong, and you won’t go hungry at all.  In terms of accommodation, I preferred South Africa, if only because of the lack of insects inside the suites.  Staff were good in both lodges, but overall I found the Kenyans to be more friendly and engaging.  On the wildlife front we had closer and more memorable encounters in South Africa, but I can’t, of course, judge a safari lodge on what particular animals got close to us on one particular day in time.  At other times of the year Bateleur is witness to the Great Migration, when wildlife experiences reach an entirely different level, far superior to anything in South Africa.  For me, the biggest advantage Bateleur has over Ulusaba is the location and geography: the iconic grasslands of East Africa provide some amazing vistas and there was a lot more space to cover on the game drives than is available in private game reserves down south.

The reputation of &Beyond guides was a key reason for me choosing to stay at Bateleur Camp.  Our guide, Peter, was very good at spotting animals, but he didn’t give us much background information on the creatures we saw.  Notwithstanding Peter’s superb eyesight, maybe we would have seen more if our vehicle also had a ‘tracker’ or a second guide?

Overall I’m scoring Bateleur 9/10, one fewer than Ulusaba.  &Beyond Bateleur Camp provides a very good safari experience in a great location.