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Wildlife Reserve of TV’s Survivor A True Wonder

Shaba National Reserve, Kenya

By Jeff Burdick

When the CBS television series Survivor went earlier this year to Kenya’s Shaba National Reserve to film its third season, it wasn’t the first time this wild, remote haven 38 miles north of the equator has attracted international attention. The book and movie Born Free chronicled Joy Adamson’s efforts to reintroduce hand-raised leopards here, and the remains of her camp can still be visited. Shaba is also within sight of Mount Kenya and its coffee-plantation-carpeted slopes that were setting for the autobiographical book Out of Africa.

For me, I first became aware of the hypnotizing beauty of Shaba — and its neighboring sister reserves of Samburu and Buffalo Springs — last spring when I was plopped down inside the reserves following a 55-minute flight north from Nairobi. Of course, I didn’t outback it like the Survivor contestants, but contentedly stayed in the reserve’s one lodge: the deluxe Shaba Sarova Lodge tucked into the reserve’s extreme northwest corner. After all, I hadn’t come to engage in a slickly produced game of survival of the fittest but to marvel instead at a far more real and dramatic version that plays out daily on the reserve’s acacia-dotted savannah. And disappointed I was not.

Within seconds of leaving the airstrip by Land Rover, my group encountered a herd of Grevy’s zebras grazing roadside beneath the cantilevered canopies of acacia trees. Although nonexistent elsewhere in the world, this specie of zebra is so numerous in the Shaba region that it soon become a ho-hum sight, but so entranced was I by this first glimpse of African exotica that I didn’t immediately see the three reticulated giraffes gracefully strolling in front of our vehicle. When I finally saw them, it was akin to the scene in Jurassic Park when the paleontologists first see a live dinosaur. At first I was stunned silent, but then I stood up with the rest of my group to gain a fuller view through the vehicle’s rooftop opening.

I’d seen giraffes before in zoos and on television, but nothing quite prepared me for the sight of one raised completely wild. In a word, these giraffes were buff. As one strutted close to our vehicle, the morning sun made the thick, taut muscles of its chest stand out like a male gymnast. Its neck bulged thickly at its base like an Olympian weight lifter. Its jigsaw-patterned hide was so healthy it gleamed like a golden retriever in a dog food ad. It was stunning and majestic and — I had to remind myself — just the first half-hour of my trip.

By the end of the week, I would visit six different parks and reserves and see as upclose as a National Geographic documentary nearly every major wild animal that Africa is famous for. There were mating lions, prowling cheetah, watering hippos, grazing rhinos, fleetly fleeing gazelles, scavenging vultures, and marching elephants, but of all the parks, I most savored my three-day stay in the Shaba area for the same reasons that Survivor producers have selected it for their production:

Sparsely visited. The 212-square-mile Shaba/Samburu/Buffalo Springs refuge feels almost deserted — and delectably so — compared to more heavily visited parks such as Maasai Mara and Tsavo East and West. Here there is no choking gas fumes and distracting noise pollution from a dozen tourist vans jockeying around the same pride of napping lions. One simply drives near a troop of feeding baboons, cuts the engine, and watches their communal behavior in blissful silence.

Wild, borderless reserve. When wildlife parks nestle too close to population centers, they must be fenced in to protect both humans and wildlife alike, which unfortunately can lend a mega-Bush Gardens quality to things. While these parks are more accessible and the animals still very much wild, nothing compares with the sight of a parade of far-ranging elephants silhouetted against Shaba’s wide-open horizon.

Numerous, diverse wildlife. Shaba is among the most diverse wildlife regions in Kenya. In addition to above-mentioned species, one also finds crocodiles, leopards, antelopes, dikdiks, oryx, klipspringers, gerenuks, the pink-legged Somali ostrich, and a whopping 350 other bird species. Thanks to its year-round river, the Ewaso Nyiro, one seldom goes more than five to ten minutes before seeing another wild herd of gazelles or elephants.

The native people. Spared a stampede of tourists, the native Samburu and Boran tribes continue living their traditional hunting and herding lifestyle while retaining a natural friendliness toward visitors. You will hear everywhere jambo (Swahili for “hello”). Their native dress also couldn’t be more colorful with bright orange and red wraps, decorative beaded head jewelry, and large hooped earrings, and they are happy to pose for pictures without begging for the appreciated tip.

A typical day on safari consists of two game drives, one in the morning and one in the afternoon when the wildlife is the most active and temperatures least severe. Game drives usually last between three and four hours, which provides ample opportunities to observe and photograph the animals in their natural habitats and social groups. In between drives, we would return to our lodge to either lunch, swim or take a nature hike.

The nature hike was especially enjoyable as it introduced me to smaller details of the savannah landscape. You seldom will see any big game on such walks as they have a predisposition against running into anything with two legs (even if you aren’t carrying a spear), but it is great for bird and butterfly watching and studying the ruts, warrens and even animal dirt scattered across the terrain. Of course, one should never hike unaccompanied outside the electrified fence of one’s lodging or campsite, which is why for safety’s sake a member from the Kenya Wildlife Service shouldering an automatic rifle joined my hike.

Another savored experience of mine was during game drives standing up through the rooftop openings and staring out at the vast savannah panorama. I would do this even when the Land Rover was in motion. This allowed for better sightings of animals and more quickly captured photographs, but even if no animals were around, I simply enjoyed soaking in every moment of exotic African scenery beneath those celluloid blue skies.

I can still sharply recall those skies as if they had been captured by the cameras of Survivor. Watching the premiere episode, I was reminded that my three-day stay in Shaba was no longer than that enjoyed by show’s first cast-off. Although I wish I could have stayed for as long as 39 days, as the show’s finalists will, I am quite happy to have concentrated completely on the Shaba’s wild animals and not Survivor’s wild politics.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: 

Contact the following tour operators that include Shaba on their itineraries:

Across Africa Safaris, (631) 858-1267

Abercrombie & Kent, (800) 323-7308

Geo Expeditions, (800) 351-5041

Micato Tours (800) 642-2861.

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