Saturday, January 14, 2012

Assessment of Solio Game reserve and Solio Lodge

By Garth Roberts


Fires were lit for our return, which make such an excellent welcome after a full wildlife adventure.

We spent two nights in Solio Laikipia, to write a good review of the Solio Game Reserve in the Mount Kenya region of Kenya.

Solio is a special privately held sanctuary sandwiched on the Laikipia Plain, between the Abedares and Mt Kenya.

All Solio Ranch Lodges are private, modern, roomy and ecofriendly with breathtaking views.The apartments at Solio Lodge also have unique lavatories (bath and rain showers) have fires lit for your return, which are such a wonderful welcome after a full wildlife adventure.

The Lodge has a fantastic blend of first-class 5 star accommodations in a private wildlife sanctuary. I do not know it gets any better than the private game drives followed by excellent food, service, folks and rooms.

The accommodation, the hospitality and the game experience were exquisite. The staff were amazingly accommodating, warm and friendly. The food was the most extraordinarily healthy, succulent and divine food, I've ever experienced on my many trips. You could not ask for a better five plus star experience.

While at the Solio Ranch the staff kindly told us about the new Lily Pond Arts Centre on the equator in Nanyuki.

The workers at Solio were adamant that we made a trip to the massive art studio, as it displays affordable contemporary art from East Africa's top contemporary artists, away from the hustle of city life.

You can opt to either sponge up the atmosphere of this calm and special African arts place, or meet the "Artists in Residence". The Art Studio houses art graduates from art colleges in Nairobi, Kenya who are on full time, long term placements at the arts centre, producing and showing new reasonable art works.

This new art studio in Nanyuki, aims to operate as a springboard for young artists to launch their art careers, while allowing safari visitors to buy original works of art.

We also enjoyed a healthy lunch on a deck, overlooking a giant lily pond.

With the great Mount Kenya Mountain as a background, we also loved watching the white egret, hunting the frogs in the pool!

What we found amazing is that the equator slices clean thru the middle of this Arts Centre. This indicates that you can view inspiring African art in both the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere!

This new Arts Centre in Nanyuki, has just installed a new equator sculpture, the Wish World, which is installed exactly at 0000000. Everybody writes down their wishes and then hangs them onto the "Wish Globe". Guess what I wished for?

The arts centre has a completely unique shop stocked with hand- crafted African gifts like beaded sandals, recycled flip flop toys, African masks, Glass chimes, Kenyan metal geckos and a lot more surprising African present ideas. That was the majority of our holiday money gone!




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