Ol Gaboli Community Lodge

Heaven in the Shaded of an Enormous Fig Tree

Sacrificed livestock, hungry Gods and sacred trees lie at the root of our base on the Laikipia Plateau. Ol Gaboli Community Eco-lodge takes its name from the nearby fig tree – the oldest and largest in the area – that had massive spiritual significance before missionaries arrived. Locals would bring goats and cattle, drain them of blood, and leave them overnight under its branches alongside a fire’s glowing embers. By morning the carcasses had gone. The Gods had visited. They had accepted the sacrifice.

Now Ol Gaboli accepts international visitors instead. The impressive fig tree still stands, but next to it is a beautiful stone, wood and thatch lodge. Built by members of Il Motiok Group Ranch, the seven cabins – or bandas with en-suite solar showers, nestle alongside a shop, library and dining, chill-out building with huge slobby cushions. Overlooking the muscular Ewaso Nyiro River, it’s the perfect sundowner spot.

Ol Gaboli, owned by the Il Motiok women’s group and run in partnership with Rift Valley Adventures, is one of several ranch projects financed by the EU. You’ll also find a cultural boma, bee-keeping enterprises and locally trained wildlife scouts.

Your visits generate funds that can send kids to the new primary school, buy livestock or help women set up small businesses including making beaded jewellery. And the lodge also plays a vital role in conservation. Il Motiok’s Maasai community can now see direct financial benefit from preserving wildlife. Once seen purely as food or a threat to humans and grazing cattle, lions, gazelles and elephants now bring in tourists and the Naibunga Conservancy has been established with surrounding ranches.

Ol Gaboli is helping create a vibrant, sustainable future. Perhaps all those sacrifices under the fig tree weren’t in vain after all!