Desert Rose

Northern Kenya


Your first thought on seeing this incredible lodge is likely to be 'How?' How did anyone find this location, about as far as you can get from Nairobi and yet still in Kenya? How did anyone conjure up the idea of building a lodge here? And how on earth did they manage to do it?

We don't know the answers, but we're certainly glad someone did because this lodge, which seems to have grown out of the mountainside, is probably the most architecturally impressive lodge in Kenya and certainly the remotest. Heavy hardwood and the local rock have been chipped and carved into furnishings, and many of the rooms are totally open plan with nothing but a mosquito net protecting you from the elements. A stay here isn't about classic safaris but, rather, it's about easy relaxation, great food and, most importantly, getting to know the beautiful Samburu people and going on wild fly-in adventures to the terrifyingly forbidding Sugata Valley or up to Lake Turkana.

Most guests fly in by private charter or helicopter, but the adventurous can drive in up an almost-vertical section of the mountain. All visitors must give advance notice.