The fence around this conservancy has two gaps in it, left there on purpose. At Lewa they face north and west, and the elephants use them as they please, coming and going by a corridor of their own between the plains and the forests of Mount Kenya. The rhinos, for whom the fence went up, stay in. We have not found out how this was explained to the rhinos.
One of them had things explained to her in person. Samia, an orphaned black rhino, was reared by Anna Merz, whose savings helped pay for the fence, until she was six and went off to live as a rhino. After that she brought her own calf to call on Merz every day, as a grown daughter might. She died in 1995, aged ten. Everything on this ground is here because of what was being done to rhinos outside it.
The land inside runs from dry acacia country at about 1,400 metres up to the Ngare Ndare Forest, with the mountain about 40 kilometres to the south. It holds both kinds of rhino and the world's largest single population of Grevy's zebra, along with reticulated giraffe, gerenuk and beisa oryx, the animals of the dry north that a visitor to the Masai Mara does not see. Lewa is a working conservancy first and a place to stay second. Three nights is the least we would give it. The rhinos are what everyone looks for on the first drive. By the second it is the zebra's ears, and by the third morning nobody in the vehicle has noticed the fence for days, apart from the elephants, who know where the gaps are.
Explore 1 exceptional boutique hotel hand-picked in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. Click a pin to discover each property.
Kenya, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy
Elewana Kifaru House
A boutique retreat in the wilds of Kenya’s magnificent Lewa Conservancy.
Price for 1 night from
€1,325.88
Elewana Kifaru House sits on an escarpment looking over the plains: five thatched cottages with four-posters, one of them with two bedrooms, an infinity pool and a log fire in the lounge. Kifaru is the Swahili for rhino. Members book it at rates we hold for the Club. The house is small enough that a family or a group of friends can come close to filling it, which makes it the place to bring people you already like.
Game drives in shared vehicles come with the stay. Pay for an exclusive vehicle if you have a long lens or children, and for horses or camels if you want to get close to a giraffe without an engine. Ask about walks with a guide. The Grevy's zebra is the one to learn: the biggest of the zebras, with narrow stripes that stop at a white belly and ears that look borrowed from something larger. The Lewa Safari Marathon runs across the same ground in late June, so choose another week for empty tracks.
The long rains fall March to May and the short rains October into December. July to September and January to February are the driest stretches and the easiest for game, though nothing here depends on a migration and Lewa can be visited all year. Nights are cool at this height, so pack something warm for the early drive.
Light aircraft leave Nairobi's Wilson Airport for the Lewa Downs airstrip daily and take about an hour, and the drive takes about four. The flight is the better use of a short stay, and the house will meet it.
For rhinos and Grevy's zebra in numbers found in few other places, on ground that needs no migration to fill it. Lewa holds both black and white rhino and the animals of Kenya's dry north, the country is open and easy to read, and it pairs well with the Masai Mara on a longer trip.
