Angama Mara

Angama Mara sits right on the lip of the Oloololo Escarpment, some 300 m above the plains of the Mara Triangle, the western part of the Masai Mara National Reserve. Its name comes from the Swahili for ‘suspended in mid-air’, and the lodge does seem to hang above the Great Rift Valley, with the savannah running out to the horizon below. The 700-hectare property borders the reserve directly, with 1.2 km of valley frontage, forests of its own and a private road down to the plains.

The lodge is made up of two small camps of 15 Tented Suites each, strung along the escarpment so that no suite has a better or worse view than the next. Beyond the safaris there is a photographic studio, a map room, an acre of kitchen garden, a beading studio where Maasai women from the neighbouring community work every day, and a pool above the valley. Stays are fully inclusive: meals and drinks (except French champagne and reserve wines), safaris in the Mara Triangle, escarpment walks, laundry and on-property activities. Children of all ages are welcome all year.

Days at Angama Mara are planned with each guest rather than run to a fixed timetable:

• game drives in the Mara Triangle from sunrise to sunset — at dawn, late morning or in the golden afternoon light, or a full day with picnics as far as the Tanzanian border; vehicles take up to six guests and have canvas roofs and charging points; from July to September or October the wildebeest migration crosses the Mara River, and the rest of the year belongs to the resident herds and the Big Five;
• guided walks on the Oloololo Escarpment with Maasai naturalists — one to two hours off any fixed trail, through forest and open glades, learning how the Maasai use plants for medicine and everyday life;
• sunrise hot-air balloon flights with a partner operator: the launch site is about 45 minutes’ drive away, the flight lasts around an hour and ends with a sparkling breakfast wherever the balloon lands (from age 8);
• the Photographic Studio: complimentary one-to-one tutorials and editing sessions on large-screen Apple desktops, Canon, Nikon and Sony cameras and lenses for hire, printing on paper or canvas, and photoshoots with the lodge photographer around the lodge or on a game drive;
• a fitness room with Technogym equipment behind floor-to-ceiling glass doors, and runs with Kenyan long-distance runners at almost 2,000 m;
• the Map Room, where safaris begin and sightings are shared afterwards, a library of Africana books and films, the Safari Shop with Kenyan jewellery, clothing and books, and the Beading Studio;
• visits to the neighbouring Maasai community on request;
• weddings and traditional Maasai blessings for newlyweds or vow renewals — on a saddle of land above the reserve, in the Shamba garden or in a small brick chapel with stained glass.