Gap Break

Kenya – Gap Break Itinerary

What are your thoughts?  Are you looking at 1, 2, 3 months of the summer or more?  Here are some ideas that have been tried and tested and enjoyed and lived and loved.  Why don't you join us too?

With snow kissed, glacier riddled peaks of Mt Kenya, sweeping savannah punctuated by rocky hills and free flowing rivers, the Laikipia Plateau and its abundant wildlife are the stuff of romantic African legend. Ol Gaboli Camp is the perfect place for a gap trip.

Since when were gap trips this much fun? Local traditions, along with bush and hunting skills – spear throwing anyone? Medicinal plants and Laipikiak Maasai culture, before putting in several demanding but fun days on a Community project. Exhilarating stuff – and you’ve only just started!

Now it’s time for Mount Kenya with snowfields and glaciers sitting directly on the equator! We’ll climb one of the peaks at sunrise, an experience that’ll leave you on top of the world, before coming back down to earth for a camel safari, mountain biking, abseiling, rafting and safaris for lion, rhino, elephant and leopard. As well as a wonderful social scene this is the best time you have ever had.

You’ve just experienced the living, beating, breathing heart of Africa. You will want to stay longer. We just know it!

Highlights

• 2 week School and Camp Building Project in Laikipia
• 6 day Mt. Kenya climb (optional*)
• Swahili lessons, orientation and 24-hour on-site management
• Cultural excursion days including a visit to a Maasai village
• 3 day camel safari
• 2 day rafting trip
• 3 days of game drives/walks to view wildlife
• Accommodation in Ol Gaboli Community Lodge and tented camps
• Bush Party
• Mt. Kenya climb is included in the package price but should you not wish to partake you can continue with project work.

Community

We want to put something back into the beautiful but desperately poor Laikipia tribal lands. The aim: To lessen poverty by supporting development and education projects.

Last year students built a dormitory for Kirimun, one of three primary schools in the scheme. It was about more than a good night’s sleep. It means local girls can remain unmarried until a later age, allowing them to enjoy a better education.   Here are some of our community projects.

Your Trip – Conservation at Work!

At Ol Gaboli, you’re helping us realise our goals – and one of them is desperately needed animal and environmental conservation work. Your visit provides funds for local communities, direct practical assistance on conservation projects – and lets farmers see the monetary value of protecting rather than hunting game.

And it’s already having a direct impact: Laikipia is Kenya’s only district to continually record stable or rising wildlife populations – elsewhere they’re in decline. The numbers are now second in size to the famous Maasai Mara.  The Ewaso eco-system has 5,400 elephants – the second largest population in the country - along with the highest numbers of endangered species including rhino (half Kenya’s total number) that has been poached mercilessly for its horn, Grevy’s zebra and reticulated giraffe. We have the only viable population of Jackson’s hartebeest and a rising tally of wild dogs.

This year we built even more schools helped construct a 3 kilometre water pipe line from the Ewaso Nyiro River to the Il Motiok Nursery School providing valuable water for children and families away from the charging elephants!

But the benefits flow both ways. Just ask departing students saying a tearful goodbye to their friends at Kirimun Primary School. At an impressionable age they had their eyes opened to a different culture and lifestyle – a rewarding experience that spawns lifelong tolerance and understanding.

And what practical project might you get involved in? Work on development projects building classrooms, helping install water tanks, plant trees or working on research projects including elephant tracking or crop protection.