Yogita & Manish Sharma

Nature Traveler | Fitness Enthusiast

Thanks for your support in arranging booking to Ol Pajeta on such a short notice. It was a pleasant stay rather I will say one of the best so far in Kenya and my family can remember it for entire lifetime. We didn’t face any issues during our stay. I would like to share my experience of Ol Pajeta with this post....

Serena tented camps are placed very well inside the conservancy. We reached Ol Pajeta at 1:00 pm and on the first day while having lunch we spotted African Bull Elephants (a herd of 15) just 10 feets away from the dining hall near the watering hole. Imagine taking a selfie with African Bull Elephant, I did..

Weather was awesome, clear sky, the temperature here in day rises a bit due to the altitude (6800+ ft from sea level) as compare to Nairobi. We did 3 game safaris and in all of them we spotted Big 4 (only leopard was missing).

Just after finishing our dinner, while waiting for our guide to take us to Night game drive we spotted 2 White rhinos near the water hole, close to dining hall. The one white rhino was huge with very big front horn (really big almost 25 to 30 inch) and second rhino was much smaller (might be male and female).

What else you want, no need to go for game drive in OL Pajeta animals comes near to your tents and pays back your money worth.

Our night game drive started from 9-11 pm and we were the only one in the forest, Just after 10 min we started our game drive a big male bull elephant which was hiding behind the trees came close to our car and threatened us to go away….was a scary event.

It was a different and amazing experience to do a night game drive. We witnessed 2 lion hunting a group of around 100 zebra's (un-successful even after 3 attempts in 40 min) plus many other active night animals like Oryx, Eland, Anteater (rare one to spot), Grevy’s zebra, Jackson’s Hartebeest, pack of stripped hyenas with around 15 cubs, pack of black back jackals, black and white rhinos with calves, waterbuck, gazelles and impalas, group of banded mongoose & heaviest bird to fly – Kori Bustard.

We also spotted 3 big families of Cape buffalo’s almost 100+ in one group and 3-4 herds of Elephants (15-20 in a group all ages) in marsh land during the 3 game drive.

Ol Pajeta is famous for its Rhino, and one of them is the blind black rhino named Baraka, a totally different experience. Rhino whether a blind or with eyes are aggressive especially black rhinos and they don’t want others to come close to them. But Baraka is an exception, we touched him and feed him grass. He behaved well till the time we were touching the area near his mouth but the moment our driver touched his ears he became angry and starting make sound and signs of warning. But then in next 2 min he was calmed down by the guide by calling his name.

Nature Traveler | Fitness Enthusiast

Chimp Park visit was the highlight of our stay, we spotted both groups separated by river. Spotted Alpha male of both groups and also to mention the naughtiest chimp named Ajabu (means amazing in swahili). We almost died laughing to her activities, she was teasing other big members by beating them with stick, pulling their legs and patting heavily on their back and then running away so that they can chase her. I have never seen my son laughing so loud.

Overall it was an awesome experience, I will surely recommend my friends to book through you for Ol Pajeta, beside Masai Mara already planned through you. As it is very easy to spot Big 4/5 as compare to any other national park in Kenya and may be if you are lucky you can spot the leopard as well.

We planned for only 1 night stay and we spotted such large number of animals and realized we could have booked for at least 2-3 nights there.

Staff/Guide & Park workers was good and courteous. Food was great, we found good Indian vegetarian food.

Thanks again for arranging this visit for us...