Trip Components

Lots to take into consideration

Outdoor Education Adventure

As we are an Outdoor Education company we seek funds in order to take schools like Il Motiok Primary School and Makindu Orphanage on a trip designed to challenge the students physically and mentally in the outdoors. For the past five years we have operated many outdoor education trips for impoverished school children from organisations such as Karen Street Boys and Girls and St. Stevens Aids Children’s Home. The trips give the children a chance to develop themselves in much the same way that students overseas have the opportunity to on their Outdoor Education trips.
Our objectives are similar to why your school participates in Outdoor Education such as:
•    Challenge the individual
•    Adventure
•    Get into the outdoors
•    Develop life skills such as communication, leadership, perseverance, and working together.
•    Understand the natural environment leading to conservation of flora and fauna, and initiate conservation projects.

In order for us to continue the Schools for Communities Outdoor Education programme we encourage students and parents to donate a small amount so that a child can participate in a 3 day outdoor education trip to Laikipia. We will inform you of the school, orphanage, children’s home or street kid group that your money will be used on and provide you with a feedback report from the participants.

Your Trip – Conservation at Work!

By joining a Rift Valley Adventures expedition, 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.

Extra Activities

Often there will be time in the evening for extra activities. This could be a simple walk, a rockclimb, game viewing or anyone of the activities below.
• Cultural activities - Samburu and Laikipiak Maasai activities, view how honey is collected, collecting water from dry river beds, starting a fire with two sticks, and general bush skills.
• Nature walks – view game, understand medicinal properties of plants, tracking.
• Rock climbing
• Abseiling
• Rafting
• Manyatta visits
• Game drives
• Fly camping
• River BBQ’s
• Wilderness 1st Aid
• Swahili language
• Samburu language

Roster

The students can be split into three or four groups and rotate through the following jobs should the program allow this:
• Cooking
• Cleaning
• Clothes/bedding washing

Food

Travelling with Rift Valley Adventures we will experience the vast array of wonderful food that is available in East Africa. All meals are included in the trip price and we endeavour to give you flexibility in deciding what to eat. An example of what you may expect is:
Breakfasts: tea, coffee, toast, porridge, muesli, cereals, bacon, eggs, fruit,
Lunches: sandwiches, pizza, salads, stew and rice, fruit
Evening meals: might include nyama choma and ugali, stews, pasta, curries, salads, BBQs, meatballs, stir fry, and cooked vegetables.
Vegetarians: If you are a vegetarian please advise us when you book.
Solar ovens –We try to cook most meals in our solar ovens.
African Food: ugali (maize meal cake),  Matoke (mashed plantains), Nyama choma (BBQ meat), Sukuma wiki (Kale), Irio (potatoes, beans, maize, peas, pumpkin leaves mashed together)
We provide a large menu selection with camping recipes for all of the above and many more such as:
• Make bread on the campfire
• Our famous cinnamon scrolls
• Bake a camp cake

Weather

Temperatures should remain around 28°C for July and August; however recent years have had some unexpected fluctuations, both warmer and colder. For instance the day temperature in Laikipa in 2004 was 16°C and the warmest was 36°C, only a few weeks apart. Plan to be flexible.  Woolies and suntan cream and sun hat.

Transport

Road transport from Nanyuki to the lodge is by private mini bus or four wheel drive vehicle. The journey should take two hours. Please note that Kenyan dirt roads are generally in poor condition and depending on the weather.

Travel Safety

We are a responsible tour operator and for us the safety of our student clients and staff is of paramount importance. We would not run any trip that we did not consider reasonably safe. Should the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise against travel for any reason, we will contact the school to discuss alternatives. We check on a very regular basis with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and with our staff on the ground, and we follow their advice very closely.

Hospitals and Medical Facilities

Kenya has excellent medical facilities and Nanyuki the nearest town to Ol Gaboli Community Lodge has the Nanyuki Cottage Hospital. Dr. Butt, the head of the hospital has over 25 years of medical experience.

In the unlikely event a group member has to be evacuated to medical facilities, Nairobi and Aga Khan Hospitals in Nairobi are a 40 minute flight with the Flying Doctors. There are two airstrips within 15 minutes drive from the Ol Gaboli Community Lodge.  When we visit other lodges, airstrip reasearch is done in advance.

All Rift Valley Adventures staff are Wilderness First Aid trained and we operate the only Outdoor Adventure training school in Sub Saharan Africa. Safety is paramount.

Responsible Tourism Policy

Tourism can be a real help to local communities, providing income, positive cultural exchanges and a financial incentive to protect their natural environment. Ours is a 'total approach' to responsible tourism, covering everything from the way we plan and operate our trips to the practices of Rift Valley Adventures as a company. Rift Valley Adventures trips are designed to allow a high degree of economic benefit to the local communities; we buy local produce, eat local food and use local services, thus ensuring that as much money as possible is retained within the local economies and the host communities. With our responsible tourism policy we are continually reassessing our trips, trying at all times to ensure that they are socially, economically and environmentally sound.