Review: Reteti House, Kenya

My first ever interaction with Reteti House was, essentially, being asked “are you sure?”.

Are you sure

My reputation precedes me.  Perhaps that was the smartest thing they could have done, because expectations are everything. If someone swears blind that Cats is the greatest film ever made, you settle in awaiting genius. If someone tells you, correctly, that it’s a two-hour screamer of a turd in which Judi Dench appears to have been drugged, kidnapped and upholstered, you settle in to enjoy the catastrophe.

And to be clear, this wasn’t some clever bit of reverse-psychology marketing. This is Reteti House in all its unfiltered, natural glory.  It starts at around $7,000 a night for up to six guests in an exclusive use, six-bedroom property — roughly what two people pay at any given Singita property, for a one bedroom — and at no point does it pretend to be Singita. So this particular travel agent is not about to enable twat-mode, swan in and expect perfection. I was warned. I saw the price. I understood.  I can’t, and won’t, judge it against the ultra-luxury market, because it isn’t aiming for it. That would be like watching my daughter hop on one leg, shout “Daddy, look at me!”, and then docking her marks for failing to stick a Simone Biles dismount. Which I do, obviously. She’s three now. She should be better. But that’s neither here nor there.

I find myself locked in an ever-growing battle between luxury and adventure.  I came into this industry from the top down: staying in the world’s most luxurious properties.  All I read about is the luxury market; we are a luxury travel agency; our average booking is over USD $100,000.  I ain’t spending much time in Bognor Regis, let’s put it that way.  But at some point, the luxury can feel repetitive, almost boring, like going to a show house that looks perfect, but clearly no one lives here.  And if they did, they’d probably be breeding the next round of serial killers in that sterile environment.

Reteti House is more adventure with discomfort attached, whether deliberate or not.

Forget those open, green plains; forget the endless wildebeest stampeding across a river; forget the Kenya you think you’re getting. Reteti is none of it.  This is the Namunyak Conservancy: 850,000 acres of it, and yes, I had to go away and check that number twice. All of it community-owned, every acre.  It is mountain country; gorgeous, rumpled ranges that the lodge is built into so discreetly you could walk past it. Ain’t no one knocking on your door trying to sell you double glazing in these parts.

The rainy season had just bowed out, leaving the lowlands more sand than emerald, but still somehow green, if that makes any sense.  It did to me when I wrote it.  The mountains are holding onto their thick green for dear life. And then night falls and delivers a complete darkness, as you are surrounded by something so utterly unique: nothingness.

The biggest draw is obviously the elephant sanctuary itself, where orphaned elephants are rehabilitated before release.  But I’ll come to that.  

The first thing you see on arrival is a maintenance area loitering down by the entrance steps.  There are cables hanging about and a fridge just sort of sat there in the main area — that absence of finesse that seems to take enormous effort to achieve and add nothing, except it adds everything. There’s no spa; no gym; and a lack of shade, particularly and inexplicably by the pool.  But the pool is, against all my expectations, properly impressive; the views are wonderful; and the main area, built into the rock and beautifully designed, is a real pleasure.  I was here as a solo traveller so space was not a pressing issue, but perhaps would have been cosy were there twelve of you and one or two have irritable bowel syndrome. The crime — the actual crime — is that there’s no internet in the rooms. None, save room #2, which only gets it by standing close enough to the main area and manifest your body into a human antenna.

The rooms — there are six — are simple in the wooden, netted, vaguely-tented way that marketing call “authentic” and I call “where’s the shower.” I mean that literally. About two hours in I had a genuine moment of “‘ang on, where the fuck is the shower?” before realising it’s outdoors only. Just me, the elements, and whichever baboon fancies a show.  At this point, most properties would earn a place on my “if I ever turn to Satanism, this is the first establishment I curse” list.  If, erm, such a list does exist.  Which would be crazy…

The mosquito net has holes in it. A cheap, plastic fan stands beside the bed rather than spinning overhead, doing the bare minimum to just about keep you alive, but not comfortable.  By late night, it was still like being assaulted by a red-hot poker in my arsehole — and not in the fun way, before you ask. Occasionally a breeze shows up, and stopped me from jumping in the watering hole to cool down, even if it meant fighting elephants.

The wildlife, is not exactly the Mara.  I don’t mean this in my usual spoiled safari way where if I don’t witness fourteen lions taking down a buffalo whilst a leopard screams “FOR SPARTA” and running kicks a rhino in the skull, then I declare the game viewing disappointing.  I genuinely mean there is very little wildlife here.  Yes, you’ll occasionally see an animal, but in the same way that you’ll occasionally see Amber Heard shitting in Johnny Depp’s bed.  

The game drives could be prescribed for insomnia. I’d have had a better chance of spotting a lion in Chernobyl.  I mean I saw dik diks. And once we reversed the vehicle to get a better look at warthogs — that’s like reversing on the motorway to get a better look at a traffic cone.  On another drive it took over two hours before we finally an animal, any animal,  and I reacted like we’d discovered a cure for cancer.  Slow clap-fucking-clap. I felt like Jeff Goldblum, asking whether there were any actual dinosaurs on the dinosaur tour. There has to be animals around, otherwise the orphanage is some elaborate kidnapping scheme that we’re all innocently supporting, but like any place with lots of humans and livestock, it is minimal.

Here, they tell you to head to Laikipia for the game, and in Laikipia they tell you to head to the Mara. There is always something better out there.

But you don’t come here for game drives.  What you come for is everything else. The draw is the connection to the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary.  You can visit and spend time around orphaned and rescued elephants being rehabilitated before release. It is freaking magical.  Absolute, pure, magic.  The staff sing the elephants a song to calm them: “I live only for you, and you live for me.” And no, you’re the one crying, not me.  I want to believe the story of Loreyio, an elephant apparently carried back to the rescue centre by other elephants who’d recently been released. Don’t take that from me.

You walk with the elephants too, which is genuinely amazing.  And the other animals they’ve taken on, such as giraffes and zebras. All of it has a sweetness and innocence to it that’s difficult not to be won over by.  Have you ever seen a baby elephant bottle fed camel milk?  Then piss off, you’re not one of us.

You visit the village of the local Samburu, where people live happily in homes I can’t stand up inside, made of sticks that would fail every building regulation England has ever drafted, and you leave with either a new sense of perspective or, if you’re me, a full philosophical awakening about why these people are so content with so little. In my 20s I would have pitied them, in my 30s (still clinging on for a few more months) I admire them.  The Singing Wells deliver the same crisis with added naked men. Talking with staff about happiness, modernisation and what is gained or lost as cultures change.  I am now an (even more) insufferable person since going, as I now use the Samburu as my moral compass.  “Do you think the Samburu would approve of you buying that Hermes handbag, wifey?”.

Your ranger rides in the back with an assault rifle, which is mildly foreboding — though I appreciate that for my American readers, travelling with an armed man behind you is simply the school run.

There’s beading, horse riding, hikes, a traditional blacksmith encounter, fly camping, hikes, scenic helicopter trips. I climbed up a hill before dawn and sat for thirty minutes waiting for the sun, feeling like the Pinbacker bloke from Sunshine, just less murder-y and more skin attached to my face. I’m definitely uglier though.

The entire experience of being at Reteti House is beautiful.  Well, not necessarily at the house itself, but you get what I mean.  Even if the watering hole offered more wildlife than outside (elephants, kudu, baboon’s, there was quite a lot going on).  Coming here is a cultural juggernaut.  I might actually be a better person because I came to Reteti House.  And I hope one day to send my children here to suffer, and have the same transformative experience I did.

The food was similar standard to most safari lodges, with all the same restrictions you normally get.  It was basic, but actually rather tasty.

The manager was a delight, but everyone else might have been auditioning for a Fawlty Towers reboot, and yet I never cared.  There’s plenty of staff, but mostly people standing or sitting around.  Somehow, the fact that I, as a sole guest, had a dinner table setup, yet they brought the food out as self-service and put it on another table, was somehow charming.  Make no mistake, I stood there like a deer in headlights, but one that slowly realised the car was about to swerve. The low-rent perfection made me smile every morning.  I walked back to the lodge after the elephant sanctuary experience, it was hot, I was sweating, and someone was walking towards me holding a glass of water.  How thoughtful, I thought.  Nope, he was just taking it somewhere else.  That’s the kinda stuff that makes me laugh here.  Nothing is great, and I couldn’t care less.

No hand sanitiser after handling elephants; underwear you launder yourself; the safari vehicle breaking down and having no radio to contact anyone. Did they pay attention to any preferences?  Of course bloody not.  The sweet innocence of it, like someone coming to my room, seeing I’m asleep, yet still trying to wake me up because an elephant was down by the watering hole.  An elephant.  I’ve been coming to Africa for at least two months a year for the last decade. I have seen, at a conservative estimate, several billion elephants. I did not need this one.

And yet somehow, instead of irritating me, it all just felt part of the experience.

Conclusion

So no, the question here isn’t how luxurious it is. It isn’t.  They know it, you know it, the elephants probably know it.  It’s whether the activities are good enough to make you want to come. If this were your first safari, you’d probably make it your last. If you read this ultra-luxury blog, assume I’m endorsing it, and book on that basis — you’ll probably cry on arrival.  If I’d had more than a few days, this would be a very different and far crueller review. But for a night, dropped in at the end or beginning of a trip, particularly instead of that godawful Giraffe Manor — somewhere that weren’t concocted in Zuckerberg’s demented brain and has a real bit of culture — now we’re talking.

The lack of wildlife is part of the properties identity.  It’s about all the other things, rather than predator porn safari (which, I must add, is my favourite kind).  I can be very guilty of this; always having the FOMO of wanting to see that epic Nat Geo spectacle of amazing predator action, but there is something nice about somewhere outside of that world, just like there is at Amboseli too and even Suyian Lodge.  

That feeling extends into the wider cultural experiences too.  Isn’t that the point of travel, to broaden our horizons?  Well, no.  Certainly not for me.  I ain’t that much of a changed man.  Give me the hot tub with caviar, and make it snappy.  But maybe even I can make an exception to the rule.  Reteti House is not somewhere you come for game drives; it is somewhere you come for perspective.  For a different side of Kenya.  For culture, conservation and experiences.  And to feed a goddamn freaking baby giraffe.

There are a whole load of reasons not to come here.  I could make that list very long, very quickly.  But, still, should you?  Should you come here?  Yes, you probably should. To the right person, I would suggest Reteti House.  Maybe I’ll see you there.  Although, given the bugs, the outdoor shower, and the fact that I didn’t shower once in my entire stay, they may not want me back.