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Shompole - Main Lodge - Great Rift Valley - Between Lake Magadi & Lake Natron - Kenya
Click here to read about Little Shompole
Shompole, an eco-lodge with elegance of an eco-camp, lies on the edge of the Great Rift Valley overlooking sun-baked plains and riverine forest, great creased volcanic mountains and lush green wetlands. It is a creation of imagination and the product of a partnership with the Maasai people of that area. Constructed to emphasize the beauty of natural materials combined with flowing water and smooth white walls, the camp is truly an unusual and exquisite place.
The colorful Maasai that are Shompole's partners in this project remain traditional in much of their life-style and dress. They are fully involved in the project, employed in the lodge and included in any decision-making involving the business. They welcome visitors to both the camp and their villages and are an important focal point of a stay at Shompole. In addition, the area is also home to the Tanzanian Maasai whose white beads and very traditional way of life, distinguish them from the Maasai of Kenya.
Initiated by Anthony Russell, an experienced safari guide and conservationist, and with the support of a strong team both in the Nairobi office and in the camp, the project has successfully combined the expertise of a quality safari company and the eagerness and hard work of the Maasai people. The Maasai comprise the majority of camp staff, rangers and project coordinators on site, along with some experienced staff from the coast who contribute their skills to ensure a high standard of service. Guests are hosted by professional management, who will ensure that every detail of their stay is attended to.
The 4-Cs: Community, Conservation, Commerce and Capacity-building, are the watchwords of this project and serve to reinforce what it is all about. Shompole's aim is to create a self-sustaining tourist operation as the figurehead of the venture, which will allow the Maasai the opportunity to both improve their standard of living and learn new skills. This is only the first stage and already, with the assistance of EU funding to improve the infrastructure and assist in the management of the Conservancy, the project is gaining momentum in other areas. Private investment will contribute to the establishment of bee-keeping projects, schools, clinics and fisheries projects among others. In time, the Maasai will become the majority shareholders while Anthony Russell's team assists in maintaining a high standard. Beading projects with the Maasai women of the Group Ranch have attracted interest from international designers including Christina Kim from Dosa, as well as World of Interiors magazine. More importantly, it allows the women an income of their own and helps to elevate their standing in the community.
Tell Me More About Shompole Lodge Located In Shompole Conservancy, Great Rift Valley, as an African Safari Eco-Friendly Accommodation in Kenya
• Shompole is located on the edge of the Nguruman Escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley, 120 kilometers south of Nairobi on a 35,000 acre Conservancy, surrounded by 140,000 acres of Shompole Group Ranch, which provides a dispersal area for wildlife and buffer zone. It is a short private charter flight (30 minutes) from Nairobi, the Mara or Amboseli.
• Shompole is a unique and artistically appointed eco-lodge, built using natural materials, smooth white walls and water to create a fresh and unusual approach to the bush experience.
• Situated on the side of the Nguruman escarpment, overlooking the stunning expanse of the Great Rift Valley, the camp is positioned ideally to make the most of both: an incredible view and the cool breeze. Constructed using naturally occurring white quartz stone, pale thatch and other materials, and using water as a prime feature, each tented Shompole room provides a very spacious, shady oasis in this green desert environment. With privacy, comfort and relaxation in mind, each room consists of cool-pool and informal sitting areas, a bathroom with a view and a specially designed tent, which includes vast windows and a high-canopied roof. There are 6-tented rooms: 4 doubles, 2 twins. All rooms en-suite with private cool-pool and lounge. Extra beds can also be added.
• The main lounge and dining area consists of a high thatch roof overlooking Mount Shompole and the Rift Valley. Various levels accommodate seating areas and a lofted recess high in the roof provides an additional quiet area. Should guests wish to take meals by their tent, the main pool or in the bush, Shompole can make special arrangement to provide for their individual needs.
• The establishment of tree-based units is among the projects planned for the future. These will be ideal as a night-stop for walking and horseback safaris. Rustic and simple in design, they will offer the guest a taste of the unspoilt bush experience and a proximity to nature and wildlife that will appeal to all ages.
• Solar energy provides approximately 70% of the electricity used here, a clean renewable energy source. The remaining 30% is supplemented from a generator, as a back up charge to the battery bank. In time, Shompole is looking to further invest in renewable energy so that all the energy comes from the sun or other renewable sources.
• All of Shompole's water comes from a natural spring near the lodge. The off-take is proportionate to the quantity sustainably produced from the spring. Shompole estimates to use 20% of its total output on 120,000 liters produced in a 24-hour period. Unused water is allowed to spill over into the water hole below camp and is carried back from the water hole to the tree-lined river below the lodge thus continuing the natural cycle. The drains from the washing areas have a grease trap, which separates the grease from the water before it is released back into the surrounding environment through a system of natural sumps.
• In the rooms you will notice that there is hot water. Shompole have eco-heaters that can burn anything to heat the water, which in the initial stages after construction were all wood remnants and off cuts that the lodge still use today, as well as the cardboard boxes, waste paper, and cattle dung in proportion.
• Shompole aims to capture and keep as much nutrient in the surrounding ecosystem and minimize the losses from it. They compost all organic wastes from the kitchen, like all fruit/vegetable peelings and wastage. These all add a valuable source of nutrients into the soil of the garden, and through careful management it produces an exceptional array of fruit and vegetables back to Shompole's kitchen, without the use of inorganic inputs.
• In the kitchen Shompole has created a system of inorganic waste collection in the form of glass and plastics, which are collected, bagged and sent out of Shompole. The glass is recycled through a local glass making industry near Nairobi. For plastic, Shompole is linked with a fencing scheme, which recycles plastic into fence posts, used to reduce human wildlife conflict in areas of Kenya and to reduce the use of wood, a resource under increasing pressure in Kenya today.
Nature Experience and Activities at Shompole Eco-Lodge Located In Shompole Conservancy, Great Rift Valley of Kenya
• The camp is in an arid region. October and November tend to be the hottest months of the year, while April and May tend to be wet. Because it tends to be hot during the middle of the day, activities normally take place during the mornings and evenings, while the middle of the day is spent relaxing by the pool or in the shade of the rooms and mess.
• The Conservancy area is home to many species of animals and birdlife and includes one of the most ecologically diverse areas in Africa with environments ranging from rainforest, through acacia woodland, grass plains, riverine forest, salt plains and soda lakes. There is an abundance of plains game and night animals frequently seen include aardwolf, civet, serval, leopard and striped hyena. Elephant, lion and cheetah are found in the swamp and grassy plains, while the birdlife is varied and plentiful. All funds collected from Conservancy fees contribute to the maintenance and patrolling of the area and to projects that benefit the community as a whole; such as the establishment of schools, clinics and other self-sustaining businesses.
• The variety of landscape available at Shompole allows for a great range of activities from early morning and evening walks, night drives, sundowner visits to Lake Natron to see the flamingos, picnics and nights spent out in romantic fly-camps.
• Horse-riding, camel-riding clay pigeon shooting and river trips are among the many activities that are planned for the future.
• The pre-historic site of Olorgesaille offers an interesting day out. The experience and skills of Maasai guides and trackers play an important part in the experience Shompole offers.
• Activities are unscheduled and organized according to the preferences of the guests. Guests will also have ample time to relax and enjoy the facilities of the camp itself.
Independent Review of Shompole Eco-Lodge From The Trade Partners Awards For Small Businesses In Africa
After 20 years work with wildlife and tourists in Kenya, Anthony Russell decided that the only way to achieve a fair and stable future for them was to arrange for local people to have a stake in and later control of tourist lodges. Cash grants, schools and clinics are not enough because they do not acknowledge the locals' right to what happens on their land. They do not address the question of income from and ownership of the one money-spinner in a remote area, the lodge.
So he set up Art of Ventures (Art stood originally for Anthony Russell Travels) to establish lodges jointly with local communities. He then spent three years earning the trust of the Maasai people of the Shompole ranch. They have joined him in his first venture, Maa O'Leng (Maasai for 'deeply of our people'), for which he raised $1.2million from investors. The lodge, with a sweeping view of the Rift Valley from a spur of the Nguruman Escarpment, opened in February. The Shompole Maasai own 30 per cent, in view of their contribution of land, a spring and materials. The plan is that, by reinvesting their earnings, they will raise this to 80 percent in 15 years.
Shompole, the brown land is on the Tanzanian border, three hours' drive southwest of Nairobi. It is one of several ranches set up by nomadic, cattle-herding Maasai in Southern Kenya. It supports an estimated 6,500 people, and covers a section of the Rift Valley between two flamingo-rich soda lakes, Magadi and Natron. It is dry, blasted by the sun, but the Brown River (Ewaso Nyiro) flows through it into Lake Natron. It boasts grassland, acacia woodland, papyrus swamp, glistening white saltpans and - along the river - a fig forest.
Antelopes, anteaters, baboons, monkeys, cheetahs, giraffe (under threat elsewhere in Kenya), leopards, lions, pythons, ostrich, zebra and over 300 kinds of bird live on the ranch, the Maasai having little interest in killing game for meat. Anthony Russell's first step was to persuade the Shompole people to set aside a sixth of their ranch as a conservation area where they would not graze their cattle and goats except in extreme circumstances. The European Union has backed this with $190,000, which is being used to build a road through swampland, equip and pay 25 local people as game rangers and educate the community about conservation. The relative safety of the conservation area has already attracted a herd of 85 elephants.
Shompole people have earned $15,000 helping to build the tourist lodge, which artfully combines river rock, grass thatch and wood with smooth white walls. Guests sleep in high-canopied tents for two with muslin shade-cloth sides, under huge thatched roofs designed to mimic the silhouette of nearby mountains. Rooms have simple furniture, made by Maasai craftsmen, and each room has a cool pool. Spring water flows through the main mess, feeds the swimming pool and runs on to a watering hole for animals. Anthony Russell was keen that the lodge should be groundbreaking in design. Electricity is largely sun-generated. Maa O'Leng achieved 28 per cent occupancy in its first six months, much higher than expected. Guests - a maximum of 12 so they don't harm the surroundings - pay $330 a day, including drinks, activities and full board. They also pay a $20-a-day conservation fee, half of which goes to the Shompole community, for health, education or other community purposes.
Guests can go out for walks, night drives, river trips and bush dinners. They can visit Maasai homesteads, the lake flamingoes and Ologesaille, a pre-historic site. They can canoe, or float on rubber tires, down the river. One couple remarked: "You don't need to die. You are in paradise here."
Forty-two Maasai have wage-earning jobs, as waiters, cooks, room stewards and guides, which they never had before. AoV brought in skilled roofers from the coast that have taught young locals their trade, enabling them to roof their own homes and earn money roofing other people's home's. Elizabeth Warner, Anthony Russell's American partner, has started a beadwork business with a group of Maasai women, their work being sold both in the shop and abroad. Pools have been built for fish farming. Other income-earning possibilities for local people include beekeeping, furniture making and the sale of dried meat and tomatoes.
Art of Ventures plans to set up more lodges similar to Shompole's and hopes that other enterprises will follow its lead. Anthony Russell told Vogue: "There are areas of Kenya that have more dramatic wildlife. What makes Shompole special are the people and the fact that this is a real wilderness experience."
The judges say:
The thoughtful and imaginative blend of tourism and local community development marks this project out as a worthy winner. We particularly commend the commitment to local skill building, and the robust plans for graduated transfer of ownership to the community in the longer term. We found the model inspiring and, despite these being early days, it is already showing strong signs of delivering commercial and community benefits. Challenges lie ahead, but Art of Ventures' approach to up-market eco-tourism deserves to be emulated widely by all operators. The Shompole project shows how effective co-operative ownership is when applied in such an integrated fashion. A beautifully simple concept, well applied.
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Eco Lodge, Lake Magadi-Lake Natron, Rift Valley, Kenya
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