Out of Africa

His images are part of our collective unconscious. With its grandiose landscapes, its yellow biplane, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Klaus Maria Brandauer as Dennis Finch Hatton, Karen Blixen and Baron Von Blixen, Out of Africa has left its mark on millions of filmgoers after Karen Blixen’s autobiographical novel had left its mark on thousands of readers. Beyond the characters and the plot, it captivates by its settings and atmosphere. And it is these settings and atmosphere that we find at Segera Retreat, reputed to be the most luxurious lodge in Kenya. Even the yellow biplane, bought by the owner of the lodge, is part of the party!

Of course, we also think of “The White Mischief” and “Je rêvais de l’Afrique”, but it is of course first of all “Out of Africa” that the place reminds us of. Situated on the Laipika plateau, 45 minutes from Nairobi, this very upmarket lodge is located on the land of the Maasai warriors, important characters in Karen Blixen’s book and the film from which it was taken. Lost in the middle of 20,000 hectares of savannah, its capacity of twenty guests also guarantees its guests the integrity of solitude that safaris require. We visited it for you.

The lodge

The lodge is made up of a dozen or so buildings set around a landscaped garden that leaves the visitor in awe. Insanely green, it unfolds its paths and buildings around a main swimming pool set in a décor that looks like it came out of a film set, and enhances its visit with contemporary artworks from the Zeitz collection.

The main building is flanked on the left by a second large building, which houses a restaurant and, on the first floor, a vast rest room, surrounded on all four sides by a veranda, and on the right by the wine cellar, which has taken on the appearance of a high building with the appearance of a termite mound.

Definitely atypical, the place seems not to have been able to choose between history and modernity, wild life and unusual retreat for overworked bobos. The main building is the original property and has the look of a ranch in the American West. Preceded by a veranda under which a living room and a dining area have been fitted out, its interior is made of wood, rough stone and wrought iron.

Whether the visitor’s imagination and culture conjure up images of an American or Australian ranch, he or she has the feeling of entering a time capsule straight from the middle of the 19th century and, once past the entrance, the lounge and the bar, crosses the building through old stables transformed into exhibition rooms, each devoted to an artist. Watercolours, etchings and other video installations give an idea of the dynamism of contemporary African art. The tone is set as soon as you enter the premises: Segara Retreat is a unique place. Having crossed the main building (the Farmhouse???), one discovers an inner courtyard, paved in the old fashioned way, which distributes the common areas and the access to the garden and the villas. There are eight of them, all on two levels and built on stilts, and they all offer “rooms with a view”, and what a view, since it is the wild savannah, where lions, elephants and giraffes are at home and evolve in total freedom under our amazed eyes! On the ground floor there is a lounge with a large swing bed and a coffee table, where you can take the time to read one of the books about Kenya and its wildlife (for the more indecisive: to open their computer), and on the first floor the large bedroom and bathroom, the latter also opening onto the savannah and characterised by its black stone shower. With its brown leather and white canvas furnishings, the eminently romantic setting inevitably takes visitors back to the aforementioned films, and while some of the villas, clearly designed for safari enthusiasts, have one bedroom, three of them (one of the six Garden Villas, the Family Villa and the Segera Villa) have two or three, which will please families or couples of friends. And three of them have a small private pool. This is a luxury that lovers of African travel will find unheard of. For during the four to five days that most safaris last, the life of the tourists follows a rhythm that does not resemble that of a traditional holiday. There is no question of sleeping in or lazing around for hours. The safari day starts early in the morning because nature doesn’t wait. “But nature is there to invite you and to love you,” said Lamartine. Here, nature invites the visitor as soon as the sun rises, because this is the time when many animals come out to hunt and feed, before going to sleep in the shelter of the vegetation when the sun is hard. So your driver will be waiting for you before daybreak for the first game drive of the day. This is almost a ritual, to which the first safari participant quickly becomes addicted. If the prospect of waking up at 5:30 am leaves the first time visitor circumspect, the adoption of a bush outfit when sleep has not yet released its grip, the crossing of the silent lodge, The arrival at the table where a snack is served, and the first explanations of the driver-guide-ranger, who has already “felt” nature and knows where we have observed this morning such a herd of elephants or such a marauding fawn, soon wake up our senses. A coffee or a fruit juice in our stomachs, and now perfectly awake, we are in the 4×4 discovered on the road that will see us leave the lodge and enter the wilderness. The day is just beginning, the temperature is cool (a fleece jacket is welcome, but those who have only planned to wear a safari jacket will find warm plaids in the vehicle), nature still seems to be asleep and the engine purring at low speed does not manage to disturb this harmony that we guess will last forever. It usually doesn’t take long, ten to fifteen minutes at the most, to make the first encounter of the day. Zebras (very numerous, sometimes moving in large herds), giraffes and hyenas, but also many birds, and of course those that make the spine tingle: elephants and lions. Connected by radio to other marauding observers on the plateau, your driver knows where the animals were seen, how many there were and which direction they were heading, so encounters are frequent. However, this modernity does not exclude the adventure, the slow progress in grass whose height swallows the 4×4 and the deep ruts in which we sometimes get stuck, are there to remind us of our relativity in the immense nature. If you are forced to stop, you should not get out of the vehicle because a wild animal may be lurking a few metres away, which the driver’s trained eye will not have detected. The risk is small but not non-existent.

Also, if the Toyota is “tanked”, a radio call brings back another car in about ten minutes, and a few sprays of mud later you will have resumed your journey. The day rises over the nature, the eyes look further, the temperature rises slowly; you think for a moment about the country and the life you left during an extraordinary interlude, and you feel far, far away… Here, life flows at a different pace, time is different, priorities are different, and even the most relentless city dwellers let go and discover another way of looking at life, another breath of fresh air: it is the magic of Africa.

Between nine and ten o’clock, the driver stops the car in an open area and takes out a canteen with a thermos of hot coffee and tea, cold drinks and small cakes. It is a strange serenity to share this frugal snack in this land lost in the middle of the bush. Between ten and eleven o’clock we are back at the lodge. Free time until late afternoon. Back to the villa, a little rest, a bath in the bathtub installed on the terrace overlooking the nature perhaps. Or perhaps a massage at the spa, a visit to the shop, or to the staff “village”, where the Segara Lodge employees have small lodges, a rest room and a playground, and where all the technical facilities of the establishment are installed.

Solar heating, rainwater harvesting, wastewater recycling, bottling of glass bottles to avoid the use of plastic bottles: the whole lodge has been designed and built according to an environmentally sustainable concept and aims at a zero footprint. Or, for film lovers, a visit to the 1929 yellow Gipsy Moth “GAAMY” biplane that was used in the film Out of Africa, in which Jochen Zeitz, owner of Segera Retreat, flies over the vast wilderness. Or take a walk through the botanical garden, where you can see euphorbia, frangipani, bougainvillea and lemon trees, as well as some surprising and incongruous contemporary sculptures.

Lunch is an opportunity to enjoy the inventiveness of the chef, who uses only local produce – trout, beef and fruit supplied by local sustainable farmers, and vegetables mainly from the Segera Retreat garden. Meat, fish, salads and quiches are served in a farmhouse style, with a wide variety of dishes available for guests to help themselves to. For both lunch and dinner, the team makes a point of ensuring that guests do not eat in the same place two days in a row, with the farmhouse, reception building and even the wine cellar offering different settings in which to enjoy their stay. Unforgettable memories are those of Mount Kenya in the distance or half a dozen elephants stationed outside the veranda where you have a late afternoon drink after returning from the second game drive of the day. Such is life at Segera Retreat, between a change of scenery and the sweetness of life. Paradoxically, time seems to pass both slowly, far from the frenzy of modern metropolises, and quickly, because the days always seem to be short when life offers you such enchantment.

The private game reserve where Segera Retrait is located is in the heart of the On the trail of “Out of Africa, at an altitude of 1700 metres, at the foot of the foothills of Mount Kenya. The climate is mild, with warm days (28/30°C) and cool evenings.

Covering an area of 200 square kilometres, it is a sanctuary for many species, including the reticulated giraffe, the Grevy’s zebra, the Pata monkey, elephants, and of course the famous Big Five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo). Consisting of dry savannah, wooded savannah, arid landscapes, vast open plains and crossed by four permanent river valleys, its environment typically representative of this region of Africa is a privileged place to observe wildlife as it constitutes a migratory corridor between Mount Kenya and the Rift Valley. The famous scene of a flock of flamingos in Out of Africa was filmed in the Great Rift Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The 4Cs: community, commerce, conservation and culture

As owner of Segera Retreat, the Zeitz Foundation is scrupulous in respecting its 4C concept (for community, commerce, conservation and culture), and is resolutely committed to preserving the region’s cultural heritage, notably by ensuring that the 200 people who make up its staff represent the four tribes of the region – Maasai, Kikuyu, Samburu and Pokot – and by practising eco management.

Thus, in addition to providing employment to local people, Segera also provides them with various opportunities to improve their livelihoods through the use of traditional skills, including medicinal plants.

Among the Foundation’s most significant achievements are the construction of six schools, which now provide schooling for 1,800 children, and several initiatives that preserve age-old crafts and empower women, such as the East African Women’s Anti-Poaching and Conservation Unit, which is part of Kenya’s remarkable anti-poaching record. This is part of Kenya’s remarkable anti-poaching record, which for the first time in many years has reversed the trend for elephants, which are now more numerous than they were in the past.

This unwavering commitment has enabled the Laikipia Plateau to claim the second highest density of wildlife in the country in a few years, and the only one where wildlife is increasing, and in a decade the communities around the lodge to move from a degraded and arid land to an enviable environment. By proactively improving the comfort of local populations, Segara has demonstrated that luxury can also be sustainable.

Segara Retreat is not just another lodge, but a brilliant demonstration of what can be achieved by doing the right thing, and while it is certainly a luxury resort for a privileged few, it is also a virtuous enterprise, for the environment as well as for the local population. No surprise then to read the enthusiastic articles in the international press: “Segera Retreat is nothing like what I’ve seen before. It’s a place to reflect with nature and solitude, a place where guests learn about Kenya’s community and wildlife” for CNN, “the best outdoor adventure destination” for the Telegraph, one of the world’s top twenty destinations for Conde Nast Traveler, one of the world’s top ten luxury destinations for the Los Angeles Times, you name it… And while we’re on the subject of quotations, let’s end this article with this one, which we owe to Jochen Zeitz: “Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm: it is now about doing more good. That says it all.

A night in The Nest

Spending a night in The Nest is an experience within the experience of a stay at Segera Retreat. The Nest is an incredible structure located in the middle of nature, ten minutes from the lodge. It is a wood and branch structure inspired by the bird nests we have all seen in the countryside. Elevated and inaccessible to wild animals, it offers a bedroom and a small toilet, and above all a panoramic roof, from which one enjoys a 360° view and a bed, which allows one to sleep under the stars. At nightfall a car drops off guests with a picnic-style dinner and picks them up the next morning with a continental breakfast tray. In between, you will have enjoyed the incredible spectacle of an African starry night, the sounds of the bush and the animals coming to quench their thirst at the waterhole that the nest overlooks: an unforgettable moment of romantic solitude.