Lamai Serengeti - as seen by "The Urban Nomad"

Lauren Scott - Nomad's PR in New York 

Well what can you say about Lamai. What an incredible, incredible spot this is. My first trip to the Serengeti and I may have already found my favorite part of it. While I am counting down the days to the grand opening on June 27th with mounting impatience and excitement, I think everyone else is happy to let the date arrive in good time. 

We flew in from Ndutu and, despite somewhat drizzly weather and huge rainclouds, it was hard not to marvel at the amazing view and just how quickly this place is taking shape. The excitement on the ground is palpable, the progress is steady and the whole site looking more and more impressive every day - with bemused elephant and baboon onlookers supervising progress from a little distance.

I was treated to a grand tour with the whole team, checking out every room, the mess, the private camp, the pool, secret spots in the kopje...a proper day of exploration and discovery.

Seeing a site through the eyes of the team behind the vision is a real and rare treat - with John talking us through the layout of each room and Jo bringing the interiors ideas to life with her mood boards and real art for helping you imagine a 5 star bedroom in what is currently a timber framework.

Each room is so totally unique with a totally different view across the landscape, you can see immediately that it will be hard to stay here just once.

There is something magical about to happen in the Serengeti and the fact that Nomad have been entrusted as guardians of this location is something of which the whole team can be very proud. Watch this space!

Lamai updates - March 2011

Lamai Serengeti is progressing in leaps and bounds now, it's easy to see the changes as the camp starts to rise out of the rocks: sides on, roofs going up, day by day it grows.

And it's quiet up there, so so quiet. Whilst the safari masses cluster around the southern grass plains, as well they might - a million or so wildebeest can't be ignored - every day our site crew, and John Corse who flies up at least once a week, are treated to a plains game spectacular; animals are everywhere! That and the cats who are maintaining 'their spot' on the kopje. The balloons rising silently over the Mara every morning are the only other companions and we're loving it!!

Main Camp mess

Main Camp Room 5 coming along nicely, with 'fundis' from HQ and the site crew

Rock - 1 Nomad - 0: the art of bush ingenuity

Building on top of a rock kopje has taught us many things, not least of which how to deal with the odd stray rock that gets somewhat in the way. Not that we want to move them, oh no. A rock is a rock on top of a giant pile of rocks, and as such has its place right where we found it...not 6 feet to the left. We understood completely the challenges involved in setting up camp here, and with stout hearts declared that we were ready for anything. And so it goes...

But sometimes a rock can come out of nowhere and take us by surprise.

This is our Lamai main camp swimming pool, a work in progress that will ultimately offer our guests a swim with a view, glass of wine in hand as they cool off during a hot afternoon. But what our camp builder wasn't expecting to find, as he dug deeper uncovering more and more soil, was a giant boulder right in the midst of our would-be watery creation. Good diving platform perhaps, natural bar stool maybe?

Not to be outdone, as this was a rock we hadn't intended to feature with such prominence, we came up with a cunning plan which involved digging a hole below and around the rock and watching with interest as slowly it got lower and lower, disappearing below the surface. Hard work for sure, but our rock sensibilities are safe in the knowledge that it has moved not a foot to either side of where it has lain for perhaps thousands of years.

Lamai Serengeti - taking shape

Main mess at Lamai Serengeti

Some already rather old images of the goings on at Lamai. There’s now an army of folk on site and having completed much of the back of house and infrastructure elements, they’re now going full bore on the front of house guest structures. 

With them all being worked on at once, we expect the principal structures to be completed by mid March with our interiors team poised to start on internal outfitting and decoration throughout April.

We’re already sifting through manager applications (lucky people!) as well as guide & staff selection, with refresher training scheduled from mid May. Look out we might well be looking for guest guinea pigs come early/mid June!

And with all who see Lamai falling in love with the place, bookings are already looking busy through July & August

Room 5

It's an exhausting business...

watching this camp being built.




































































Meanwhile the camp crew have daily encounters with a variety of wildlife in, on and around the kopje.






































Pictures by Kyle Ray

Life on the Rock

A well-known British photographer, and several large cats, visited our kopje this past week, to somewhat differing degrees of welcome. Our Lamai Serengeti building crew are town boys mostly, straight out of the bright lights and dala-dala-traffic-chaos of Arusha town. Lions wandering through camp on nocturnal sojourns are not really their idea of a good time, or something that helps them with a restful night.

















Indeed, on our arrival, they were exceedingly quick to point out the very large paw prints etched in the mud in the midst of the current site; looks like these lion were very keenly checking out the back-of-house building progress as well they might, the Kogatende kopje has been prime lion territory for many years.

Sadly, game viewing is not something at the forefront of the boys daily activities, but if they did have time to look up and out over the rocks, they'd see an astonishing amount of wildebeest, zebra, buffalo and elephant literally everywhere.

















The Kogakuria Kopje has always served as something of a magnet for game in the area, not just during the months when the migration is in residence (August to mid-December). Everywhere you go the kopje navigates you; it's at your back as you head towards the Mara River and a day spent in hesitant excitement watching the often gruesome spectacle of a river crossing. Heading home at sunset it dominates the horizon, hard not to ... it's the highest point for miles.

















Photographer Jo caught up with building contractor Charlie Mason who explained the finer points of a load of rocks and rubble, some long pieces of rope and a very ingenious 'spirit level' made from a length of hosepipe.
























Download the Lamai Serengeti Fact File here

Breaking Ground at Last!

So, it's finally happened - we're at, on and in the kopje; we're quietly but firmly there, evaluating, conjugating and generally snooping about and getting under its very skin. Our team - John, Uli and Charlie - flew in last week in Nomad’s very small plane, all the tools of their respective trades stuffed in every available space and then some.

On arrival they were met by Mr Mwikoko and his very useful truck. Mr Mwikoko, a local man from the area, bounces his way across the open savannas from Mugumu (just west of the park) bringing with him all the locally sourced sand, gravel and rocks; you see, even at this early stage we’ve got a beady eye fixed firmly on our carbon footprint!

Joined by Edgar, the camp foreman, the team spent last week concentrating on the back of house area, siting staff quarters and making sure everything had the right zen and flow, important in the scheme of things. Ever present, and watching all the proceedings with interested eyes, were copious baboons, oribi, zebra and giraffe. They say there’s even a resident leopard there, the workers hear him at night when they’re tucked up safe under cover of the temporary shelters.

John, Uli and Charlie enjoy mozzie nets under the trees, a sky lit by insurmountable stars (and much story-telling) and gallons of camp coffee to start the day. Then they walk every path, they look at every view – noting always the far-off balloons rising and falling over the Maasai Mara, and they start to feel more and more ‘at one’ with Nomad's new home. Their mission, as in all things regarding this kopje, is to have as little impact here as possible, and this takes shape more and more as we learn and appreciate all that this area has to offer.

About the view Charlie says "you come in hidden and behind the ridge, you're just below the top of the kopje so have yet to be aware of the scale. You then emerge out of the rocks and suddenly WOW...it hits you...the enormity of it all...and how everything just falls away right in front of you with views extending forever north and east. It's all about the arrival you see, not giving the secrets away until you're actually standing there".