Kenya

In Africa, there’s one way of seeing the countryside that I prefer to all others: on horseback. I learned this on my first horseback safari, a two-week ride through Kenya’s Rift Valley, over the Loita HIlls and to the boundary of the Masai Mara, about two hundred miles in all.

Nothing beats the thrill of riding with a herd of cantering zebras or loping giraffes. Nothing, that is, except the thrill of galloping away from a charging bull elephant or a thundering black horde of three hundred enraged Cape buffalo. Wild animals are profoundly attuned to the movement of other animals. Obviously. This is what keeps them all alive at least one day longer than their neighbor who kept his head down instead of looking up and running when the others did. So it’s tough to sneak up on a herd of zebras or giraffes. When they see you moving, they assume you’re moving away from something so they should move, too. If there weren’t something in the vicinity you wanted to move away from, you’d have your head down eating, just like they did a minute ago.

My dispatches from the road are full of interesting details. To sign up for my Dispatches Newsletter click HERE. If you have questions about where we went and where we stayed, post below and I will reply.