Rock-Climbing Fun - Laikipia Masai Style

We had a super day yesterday climbing with some of the most enthusiastic and exhuberant guests I’ve ever guided. Wtih 16 kids from Ol Motiok and Kimanjo Town (our neighbors to the north and east) we assaulted three big climbing routes that we regularly use on our safaris.

The kids ranged in age from high school kids to 6 years of age and yet, never have I seen such a capable bunch of climbers as this group. Typically you will always have a few kids who might be too nervous to go the top the first time or else when confronted with a tricky section, might abandon the climb. That was not on the cards for these kids. They had signed up to climb and that is exactly what they were going to do; every single child completing teach climb.

Our conservation work that we do at Tumaren is enormously rewarding but it is equally fulfilling to watch young boys and girls having such fun in a wilderness setting doing a sport they might never have heard of until recently. Along the way our head guide Gabriel identified tracks and geology as well as some of the Endangered animals we passed on the way to the rock. I also pointed out as they climbed that climbing was now an olympic sport and that Kenya had yet to put together a team. One boy said “they did this in Tokyo”? Impressed, I answered yes and that if they worked and practiced hard enough they might be the first climbers to represent the country. They liked that idea.

For more information about the outreach work we do with our neighbors click here.