Bateleur Camp

Fly. Scheduled light aircraft from Nairobi's Wilson airport land at the Kichwa Tembo airstrip on the western side of the Mara after about an hour in the air, sometimes calling at another Mara strip first. The strip is only two and a half kilometres from the tents, so the transfer is a short drive and often the first sighting of the stay.

The scheduled aircraft carry soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person with hand luggage counted in. For your own timings we can arrange a private charter, usually a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, flying direct to Kichwa Tembo. The same light aircraft network links the Mara with Laikipia, so a combined trip never needs to route back through Nairobi.

Bateleur is the smaller and more formal of the two sister camps, which stand a few hundred metres apart on the same private land below the Oloololo Escarpment. It is laid out as two separate camps, North and South, of nine tents each, and each half has its own pool and its own dining area, so meals are shared with a handful of other guests rather than a full lodge.

The tents were rebuilt from the ground up in 2018 by the designers who first created the camp in the late 1990s, keeping the old-world look of antiques, leather and polished silver. Each has a private deck with a daybed, indoor and outdoor showers and a bath under a glass roof, and a butler looks after each tent. Kichwa Tembo is the older and larger of the pair.

Yes, and that is the main reason to stay on this side of the boundary. The camp sits on private land beside the Masai Mara National Reserve rather than inside it, and the reserve allows neither walking nor driving after dark. On the camp's own land guides lead bush walks to read tracks and the smaller life of the plains, and you never walk alone. After dinner they take out spotlit night drives for the animals that hunt in the dark.

By day the vehicles also cross into the Mara Triangle, the western part of the reserve, for the open plains and the river. A hot-air balloon flight over the reserve at first light, ending with breakfast on the grass, can be added at extra cost.

Yes, children of all ages are welcome, and the tents take an extra bed for a child, so a young family can share. There is also a family tent made of two tents joined by an enclosed passage with a small lounge between them. The camp is not fenced and animals walk through it, so younger children share a tent with a parent and are with an adult at all times.

The youngest children join the shared game drives only at the camp manager's discretion, so with children under twelve we book a private vehicle and guide, which lets each drive end when they have had enough. Tell us their ages at enquiry and we will plan the days around them.

Yes. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, rates Kenya as high risk for malaria and recommends antimalarial tablets everywhere except Nairobi and the highlands above 2,500 metres. The American CDC draws the same line and counts the game reserves in. The Mara, the Oloololo Escarpment included, lies well below that height, and the advice is the same in every season.

We are travel planners, not doctors, and we do not make medical recommendations: whether to take tablets, and which ones suit you or a child, is for you to settle with your own doctor or a travel clinic. Long sleeves after dark and repellent on bare skin are worth packing whatever you decide.

January and February are among our favourite months in the Mara: the grass is short after the short rains, the light is clear and the resident lion and cheetah are easy to follow, with far fewer vehicles than in high season. July to October is the other peak, when the migration herds are usually in the Mara and the reserve is at its busiest.

June, November and December are good value with real arguments of their own: green plains, dramatic skies for photographers and quiet drives. The long rains from March into May, heaviest in April, are the months we would steer most people away from, because the tall grass hides the game and some tracks turn to mud.