Condé Nast Traveller - Room with a view
December 2015

Where are we?
Angama Mara, Kenya.

Why we love it?
There’s a chink of sunrise. A fuzzy horizon, 60 breathtaking kilometres away, becomes defined, as do smudges of acacia. From your bed, atop the Oloololo escarpment the Maasai Mara begins to take shape and in the distance hot air balloons sail past. This 30-tent safari lodge is the newest, finest addition to the world’s greatest game reserve. The plot is unspeakably special. It’s managed by the Fitzgeralds, a husband-and-wife team who headed up andBeyond, the Africa specialist travel company; they say Angama is the beneficiary of their 30 years of experimenting in high-end safari game. It’s pretty near perfect. Designed by Silvio Rech and Lesley Carstens (Ngorongoro Crater Lodge, North Island), it has red-brick cones and towers, loft-like interiors and a walled pool; lateral-living tents are by Jan Allan, wide and shallow with no pesky zips or canvas flaps. And inside, there are rolltop bathtubs and retro furnishings. Yet all this is upstaged by the 11-metre glass frontage and decks with rocking chairs to watch raptors ride the thermals on the rim of the Great Rift Valley. There’s another view that needs a mention: the one from a kopje at the spot where Streep and Redford picnicked in Out of Africa, right in the middle of the property. The truth is we all ache for a farm in Africa; a week here may be next best thing.