Discover the luxury of Angama Mara lodge: a safari retreat with style
Robert Redford and Meryl Streep’s 1985 blockbuster was shot in Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve and you can now visit the golden savannahs featured in the film.
I had a farm in Africa … We all know how Karen Blixen’s story begins, and the tragedy of its ending. Fans of the 1985 blockbuster movie Out of Africa, starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep, may well be humming John Barry’s soaring soundtrack while standing on a certain blue-hazed kopje overlooking the vastness of Kenya’s Maasai Mara reserve. I am, for starters.
Up here at an eagle-eyed height above that golden savannah, the view seems to swoop forever and the movie’s director, Sydney Pollack, clearly thought so too. Surely that Out of Africa movie poster is one of the most memorable of all time?
I’m staying at Angama Mara Lodge, and most guests venture to this exact site on the 304m-high Oloololo escarpment where the picnic scene with Redford and Streep was shot. A brass plaque set beside a moth tree marks the location where Karen (Streep) delivers her eulogy to Denys (Redford). This exceptional safari camp plays on those cinematic connections, but it doesn’t really need to.
The name Angama means “suspended in mid-air” in Swahili, and who could imagine a more appropriate description. The private road up from the plains weaves and winds, and the destination eventually appears, as improbable as a mirage. Once there, shy of the clouds, camp management will likely joke you have the best balcony seats on the Mara.
Spread along the ridge, the camp is split into identical south and north hubs, opened in 2013 and 2015 respectively, which radiate from a central arrivals area, a flawless contemporary complex complete with a pretty lily pond. Angama Mara nails the “wildlife chic” design template, incorporating unexpected flourishes such as bright red contemporary outdoor furniture and fire pits with groovy arcs of bench seating, plus an enticing infinity pool.
A beautifully conceived map room reveals books, artefacts and historic items. A photographic studio (from which equipment can be hired) focuses on serious snappers, and Maasai women teach the colourful art of beading and share stories of their culture.
The accommodation totals just 30 sprawling “safari suites” across the two wings, all carefully sited between trees and bushes. The clever design is a fusion of canvas, floor-to-ceiling bush-facing window wall, and classic African lodge architecture, with 11m-long decks offering 180-degree views. Standing on those platforms, binoculars to hand, feels like being aboard a ship, surging into the sky. And these viewpoints are perfect for the sipping of sundowners, frisky (and perhaps thieving) monkeys permitting.
Scanning the interior’s textiles and accessories, I instantly feel as if I’m in a shop and long to redecorate my home with brightly woven screens and mats. The deep freestanding tub is Out of Africa-perfect. I even want to nick the cute hot water bottle cover. A case of safari fever looms and I haven’t even clapped eyes on a lion or, at the very least, a mongoose. All of that is yet to come on early morning and late afternoon game drives in the hands of expert rangers such as Elly and, particularly, Jeremy, whose eyesight surely rivals that of a bateleur eagle. Even hot-air ballooning is a scheduled activity for guests willing to rise at dawn with the perky grey-headed Swahili sparrows.
Ninety per cent of staff are from local communities and the property opens all year and not, like many competitors, just in the annual July-October Great Migration season for which the Maasai Mara is famous. Aboard Jeremy’s trusty LandCruiser, he tells us of migrating herds waiting nose to tail to cross rivers and the “sudden surge” as they stampede. On chilly morning drives, we guests drape Maasai checked blankets over our heads and look like tribal nomads. We view frisky baboons, wildebeest with their wonky gait, hippos wallowing with terrapins “hitchhiking” on those broad backs, elephants nudging a tree in the hope that dates will fall, and then idly tearing up the long grass. “Look at the ears of a jumbo,” Jeremy urges us. “You will see the crinkled shape of a map of East Africa.” And so we do.
Cheetah, lion, leopard … all arrive around us and we learn about ALTs, or “animal-like things”. Huh? These are, say, knobbly termite mounds that, from a distance, look convincingly like crouched lions. We witness the big, heroic actions of an alpha predator kill but equally enjoy small moments such as watching a banded mongoose scampering like crazy as we pull up by a massive strangler fig that Jeremy identifies as “God’s footstool”, under which his father and ancestors long gone would play as kids. David Attenborough and National Geographic have shot documentaries here, unsurprisingly, but black rhino are elusive on our drives. “Return one day and we will find them,” promises Jeremy. Yes, please.
Back at Angama Mara, groundsman Denis shows us around the property’s impressive Shamba kitchen garden, sprawling over half a hectare, including “pumpkin tunnels” and several sites where guests can have a healthy lunch with ingredients picked from just about under their feet. He explains the use of aloe vera for healing wounds, introduces us to happily laying hens, and laughs that the fennel, carrots, chives and tomatoes must be “shared with the baboons”. Mongooses meander (“to keep snakes away”) and the air is zesty with wafts of lemongrass and lime from the “citrus labyrinth” allotment. All this bounty is put to fine use by the kitchen staff, who magic up terrific meals, especially the huge breakfasts after dawn game drives, which are well received by guests with appetites sharpened by fresh air.
Sleep comes easy in my suite, which is rather far-flung along bush-bordered paths and tracks from the main facilities, and a guard with a veritable searchlight of a torch walks me “home” after dark as the property is not fenced. There’s an awful lot of scuffling in the bushes as we pass. And my nerves are a little rattled, even when I step on to the safety of that belvedere of a deck, alone and alert to a symphony of unknowable nocturnal sounds that reach long and deep into the heart, jostling with other memories of Africa that will always stay with me, treasured and unshakeable to the very last.
In the know
Children of all ages are welcome at Angama Mara, which features babysitting and two interconnected family suites in the north and south camps respectively; there is one wheelchair-adapted option. Picnics with trappings such as an old-style gramophone and champagne can be arranged at the Out of Africa escarpment site. Light planes fly several times daily from Wilson airport in Nairobi to Migori airstrip, where the camp’s vehicles pick up guests. Angama Mara is featured on the next Captain’s Choice Africa by Private Jet and Rovos Rail itinerary from Cairo to Cape Town, departing September 2, 2025. Check website for pricing and inclusions.
Susan Kurosawa was a guest of Captain’s Choice and Kenya-based Pollman’s Tours and Safaris.
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