Canvas tents line the east bank of the Mara River, inside Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve and not the conservancies north of it. Hippos surface and grumble below the tents through the night. From July the wildebeest herds move along the banks below camp, and the nearest airstrip, Musiara, is about 45 minutes away by game drive.
Hippos surface and grumble below the tents through the night.
Tents are pitched on the ground under wild olive and orange croton, canvas underfoot, with no decking or foundations, a deliberate nod to the mobile camps of old East African safari and more rustic than the fixed sister camps in the conservancy. Every group has its own open-topped 4WD, a driver-guide and a Maasai spotter, so departure times, breakfast stops and the length of a day are decided in camp, not by a timetable.
Hot water for the shower comes in a bucket, carried up the moment it is wanted. Light in the tents comes from solar-powered lanterns, with a charging strip beside the bed, and a second canopy sits above the canvas to keep the heat down. Kikoy robes and wellingtons hang by the canvas door. There is no pool and no Wi-Fi. Comfort here is deliberately of the older kind.
A life-size metal hippo doubles as the camp barbecue.
One long mess tent holds the reception and a lounge and library, with a dining table lit by a wrought-iron candle chandelier. The canvas rolls back onto a lawn of rugs and cushions above the river. A life-size metal hippo doubles as the camp barbecue, and the chef cooks over coals in its belly. Dinner is three courses at a shared table, sometimes down by the water.
Alex Walker founded Serian Nkorombo, and the guiding follows from that: a driver-guide and spotter who work the same ground season after season, and a Maasai team who run the place from the kitchen to the vehicles. Days start early, around six, either back for breakfast in camp or with the meal packed and eaten wherever the morning leads. Full days out, six in the morning to six at night, are a matter of asking. Evenings end at the fire with drinks, the day’s sightings retold and Maasai stories told as the light goes.
Between July and November the herds move along the banks below camp, and a crossing point downstream is one many of them use. Crossings run on the wildebeest’s timing, and the wait can last hours. Waking already on the river is the practical argument for staying inside the reserve in those months: guests can sit a crossing out, come back to camp in the middle of the day and return to the bank, rather than losing hours driving in from further out to reach the same stretch of water. Zebra calls and the noise of hooves carry up the bank.
Full days out, six in the morning to six at night, are a matter of asking
A salt lick beside camp brings in black rhinos, and lions and leopards watch it for what else it attracts, though the rhinos are a matter of luck. Below the bank, hippos hold the pools and crocodiles lie out on the shallows. Elephants, buffaloes, giraffes, topis, cheetahs and spotted hyenas work the surrounding grassland and its whistling thorn thickets, and close to 500 bird species have been recorded across the wider Mara. Reserve rules keep game drives to daylight hours on the roads: no walking, no night drives, no going off-road.
Ninety minutes’ drive north, in Mara North Conservancy, are the sister camps, fixed structures where walking safaris and night drives are allowed, a difference that comes from the conservancy’s private status and not the reserve’s public one. Three nights on the river and three or four up there make a good pairing: the crossings and the sound of the water first, then the quieter, more varied ground of the conservancy. Balloon flights over the Mara plains launch at sunrise. What Nkorombo asks in return for its place on the river is a fondness for canvas, bucket showers and lantern light.
accommodation
Five canvas tents stand along the riverbank under wild olive and orange croton, one of them a two-bedroom family unit with a lounge between the rooms. Inside are wrought-iron beds, weathered wood and leather, and a covered veranda of safari chairs faces the water. Bathrooms are en suite, with a flush toilet and a bucket shower.
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activities
Game drives are the activity: morning, afternoon or full day, in a private open-topped vehicle with a dedicated guide and spotter. Reserve rules keep drives to daylight hours on the roads inside the Maasai Mara National Reserve, with no walking safaris, night drives or off-road driving. Bush breakfasts go out with the vehicle, and hot air balloon flights can be arranged. Cultural visits with Maasai communities can also be arranged.
conservation
The Mara Predator Project, which tracks the region's lion prides, was helped into being by the same family of camps and based at their conservancy camp for three years. Those camps are members of Mara North Conservancy, founded in 2009, which pays fixed monthly leases to Maasai landowners. Nkorombo's own team is Maasai, working across the kitchen, guiding and camp management.
Get in touch and let’s start the conversation. An initial consultation helps us understand what you’re looking for, whether that’s specific experiences, luxury touches, or marking a special occasion, and from there we’ll guide you through what’s possible so you can decide if we’re the right fit.
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By light aircraft. Scheduled services fly from Nairobi's Wilson airport into the Mara's airstrips, around forty five minutes in the air on a direct sector and longer when the flight calls elsewhere first, and the camp is reached by road from the strip. Because Nkorombo moves with the herds, the strip used depends on where it is pitched at the time, so we confirm it with the camp when we book rather than assume it.
We can also arrange a private charter, usually a Cessna Caravan or a Pilatus PC-12, which flies direct. Either way the aircraft take soft bags only, fifteen kilograms a person including hand luggage and camera equipment.
Nkorombo pitches on the east bank of the Mara River inside the reserve, with the tents on the ground rather than raised, which is deliberate: it puts you at the level of the river and whatever is using it. In the crossing months that is the point of the place, because the herds funnel to the banks and the camp is already there rather than driving an hour to reach them.
It also means an unfenced camp on a riverbank with hippo and crocodile in front of it, so guests are walked to and from their tents after dark by the camp's staff. That is normal practice in a mobile camp of this kind and not a sign that anything is wrong.
The herds usually reach the Mara from July and are in the region into October, and the crossings people come for are concentrated in August and September. Some cross again heading south in late October and early November. Nkorombo is pitched for exactly this, on the bank rather than a drive away from it.
No one can promise a crossing on a particular morning. The herds move on rain, grass and the state of the river, not on a calendar, so we book your dates into the strongest part of the window and treat the crossing as the thing you have the best chance of seeing rather than a fixture.
Yes. A camp on a riverbank is no different from anywhere else in the Mara in this respect. TravelHealthPro, the UK's official travel health service, and the American CDC both treat all of Kenya below 2,500 metres as malaria country, naming the game reserves among the areas at risk, and the reserve lies at roughly 1,500 to 1,900 metres. TravelHealthPro rates the country high risk and recommends antimalarial tablets; the CDC records transmission across every area below that height. Central Nairobi and the highlands above 2,500 metres are the exceptions, and this is neither. Both bodies revise their guidance, so read the current position before you travel.
We do not make medical recommendations. We are travel planners, not doctors. Which tablets are right for you, whether they suit your own health or anyone else's in the party, and what is appropriate for a child, is a conversation between you and your doctor or a travel clinic. The practical side we can speak to is not medical: cover arms and legs from late afternoon and keep repellent to hand.
The Mara is high ground, so afternoons run to the middle twenties and nights drop to around eleven or twelve degrees, colder again in an open vehicle before dawn. The long rains fall from about March to May, April the wettest, and the short rains arrive in November and December, usually as an afternoon storm.
Layers, and soft luggage. A base layer, a fleece, a windproof jacket, long trousers, a hat and sunglasses, all inside the fifteen kilogram allowance on the flight in. A mobile camp keeps things simple, so bring less than you think and let the laundry do the rest.
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our approach
Every journey starts with a conversation. We take the time to understand your vision before we start planning.
Whether by phone or in person, we work with you directly to shape something that is considered, personal, and expertly delivered.
