Nairobi to West Pokot

Your driver-guide meets you at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and drives north-west along the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The cultivated highlands of central Kenya give way to drier, more remote country. You stop at viewpoints over the escarpment, where the scale of the valley is hard to take in.

The road continues through Eldoret and into West Pokot County in the late afternoon. You check in at a simple, clean eco-lodge or community guesthouse. Over dinner you meet your local guide and talk through the days ahead.

• Private drive from Nairobi
• Rift Valley viewpoint stops
• Dinner and chat with your local guide

Pokot Culture and Daily Life

After breakfast your local guide takes you to a nearby Pokot village. The morning runs at the village's pace. You watch young herders take livestock out to graze and see traditional food being prepared. You learn how Pokot society is organised, including the age-set system. You also spend time with elders and with the women who keep knowledge of crafts, beadwork and oral tradition.

You are welcome to join in, whether that is preparing food, making crafts or simply sitting and talking through your guide. You return to the lodge for lunch. In the afternoon you can take a short guided walk or rest.

• Village visit with your local guide
• Crafts, food preparation and conversation
• Optional afternoon walk

Escarpment Walks and Landscapes

This is a full day in the landscape. The northern Rift escarpment here has steep valleys, open hilltops with views across the valley floor, dry riverbeds lined with fig trees and hillsides full of plants your guide can name and explain. You set out in the cool of the morning on routes Pokot herders have used for generations. These are not maintained trails or managed viewpoints.

On the way you learn how people use plants for medicine, food and building, how water sources are found and managed, and how a pastoral culture has adapted to a harsh environment. Lunch is a picnic at a viewpoint or in the shade of a rocky outcrop. The afternoon walk brings you back to the lodge as the light turns gold.

• Guided walk through valleys and over hilltops
• Plant and water knowledge from your guide
• Picnic lunch in the field

Community Conservation and Wildlife Areas

Today is about how the Pokot live alongside wildlife. After breakfast you travel to a community-led conservation or wildlife area. Local rangers and community members explain how pastoral communities here protect wildlife together with their livestock, not instead of it.

The wildlife of West Pokot's dry country is not the large herds of the Maasai Mara, but it is often more plentiful than you expect once you know where to look. Grevy's zebra, oryx, gerenuk, kudu and many dry-country birds share land that is also a working cattle range. After lunch back at the lodge, you can join an optional storytelling session around a fire, where community members share their legends and history through your guide.

• Visit a community-led conservation area
• Talk with local rangers and community members
• Optional storytelling around the fire

A Slow Day in West Pokot

This day has no fixed programme. In the morning you can take one more guided walk, on a route chosen on the day: a viewpoint you liked, a valley you haven't seen, or a slow stroll through the village. If you would rather stay at the lodge, it is a morning for photography, writing or just sitting.

After lunch the afternoon is free. The day ends with a farewell dinner or fireside evening with community members.

• Optional guided walk
• Free time for photography and rest
• Farewell evening with community members

West Pokot to Nairobi and Departure

After an early breakfast you load the vehicle and drive back to Nairobi along the escarpment road, with the landscape changing back to the plateau of central Kenya. You reach Nairobi in the late afternoon, and your driver-guide takes you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward flight.

• Return drive to Nairobi
• Transfer to Jomo Kenyatta Airport