The lodge owes its existence to the Masai of Shompole Group Ranch who are partners in the project and who lend their enthusiasm and culture to a new form of eco-tourism.

Although the lodge itself makes a wonderful variation in the normally hectic safari itinerary, providing guests with an opportunity to relax, swim and receive a number of beauty treatments; the area around also offers a range of activities including walking, day and night game drives, bush dinners and breakfasts; mornings out on the shores Lake Natron, and fabulous bird-watching. Wildlife seen in the area includes lion, aardwolf, striped hyena, eland, giraffe, bat-eared fox and many more.

Future activities will include nights out in our own fly-camp, walking safaris through the unexplored Loita forest (Forest of the Lost Child), through the Rift Valley; as well as activities such as bicycling and clay pigeon shooting.

A unique and artistically appointed camp, using natural materials, smooth white walls and water to create a fresh and unusual approach to the bush experience.

The Shompole Group Ranch & Community: The camp is a joint-owned venture between a private safari company,  and the members of the Maasai community of Shompole Group Ranch. Managed and marketed by the safari company, the camp retains a high standard of service and quality. The community benefit from conservation fees and profit from their shares in the camp and we hope that over time, the community will become majority shareholders while we continue to assist by contributing our expertise in management and marketing.

6 tented rooms: 4 doubles, 2 twins. All rooms are en-suite with private cool-pool and lounge. Extra beds can be added. The main lounge and dining area consists of a high thatch roof overlooking Mount Shompole and the Rift Valley. Various levels accommodate seating areas and a lofted recess high in the roof provides an additional quiet area. Should guests wish to take meals by their tent, the main pool or in the bush, we can make special arrangement to provide for their individual needs.

By air: A short private charter flight (30 mins) from Nairobi, the Mara or Amboseli.

By road: A breath-taking drive from the heights of Nairobi down the escarpment and across the floor of the Great Rift Valley, encountering Lake Magadi and some of the most spectacular views. (3½ hours). Please note that a four-wheel-drive vehicle is required for the road beyond Magadi.

Additional Information:

Health precautions: Shompole is in a malaria area and so guests should take care to ensure they are taking prophylactics. Comprehensive medical insurance is also advisable when travelling to any destination in Africa.

What to bring: A good hat and sun-cream is essential. Clothing should be limited to informal clothes and should include comfortable walking shoes or boots, swimwear, light trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, shorts and t-shirts. Binoculars, cameras and extra film are recommended.

Apart from the natural beauty here, we would like to point out some detail that you may find of interest about our interaction with the people and surroundings of Shompole and how this reflects itself through lodge style, function and our business together.

It was the principles that we laid out in the very beginning that gave birth to Shompole Lodge and each day we continue to move a positive step forward with our partners.

The community together with specialists from outside and within the group ranch built Shompole Lodge. During the building phase we employed consistently between 100 and 200 members of the Group Ranch and paid the people for their work at high city rates, for their tireless efforts. These people in turn support an average of 5-6 family members each, so a greater number benefited than just those that were employed. The average monthly income during construction was around $70 per person, which increased the available income to households throughout the group ranch, an area before which saw an average household income of less than 2 USD per month.

As the design was based upon eco-friendly ideologies, a large majority of the material was locally collected. All local materials, from dead wood to thatch to river rock, have been 'quantified' and considered as the group ranch's investment in the venture between Art of Ventures and Shompole Group Ranch. In this way, the community has been able to benefit from the value of their natural assets and they have become our partners.

The partnership is formalized in the company Maa O'leng Ltd (literally translated as "deeply of the Maasai people"). Maa O'leng embodies the culture, strength and beauty of Shompole Group Ranch and its' people and the strength and commercial expertise of Art of Ventures. Our aim is that over the course of 15 years, the community will grow in stature and capacity and invest the money that they make from dividends, or other sources, back into the company to enable them eventually to become majority shareholders. A Trust is in the process of formation and when fully implemented, all profits from the community's shareholding in the lodge venture will be managed by the Trust and distributed by a board of directors throughout the group ranch and the people of Shompole, in an orderly, transparent and accountable manner.

Our aim is that over the course of 15 years, the community will grow in stature and capacity and invest the money that they make from dividends, or other sources, back into the company to enable them eventually to become majority shareholders.

This is our 4 C's principle - Community in Conservation, which generates Commerce and Capacity building. Therefore, everyone wins…including the habitat, people & wildlife. We consider this step the most vital in announcing that we are, as the jargon likes to say, "eco-friendly". Already in the first instance we have changed the face of the Shompole economy in construction earnings and improved the livelihoods directly and indirectly of most Shompolians tremendously.

We have continued in this vein with the employment and training program at the lodge where you will see the people of Shompole working alongside each other and people from outside the area who bring with them important skills from which our community will learn. Our permanent workforce is around 40 people, whom also support their own family units. These people have been and selected from those who worked on the construction. Other workers have become adept at building techniques such as thatching, masonry and carpentry, learned from specialized teams from the coast and upcountry. This division has been able to utilize their newfound skills in their own community and others are still with us building roads and general infrastructure within the group ranch areas.

Even our T-shirts are hand embroidered by a women's group from the Kibera slums in Nairobi town. In this way we are culturing a system that encourages and supports other communities through the figurehead of the lodge, a human synergy that will assist communities to compete within the Kenyan economy with a firmer footing. We will continue with this line of assistance where we can.

We had started the beadwork project, which has been a resounding success with many women being employed other than within the lodge, operated and run by Masai Collections. Many of these products are now internationally known and can be bought in our gift shop. This has really supported over 20 women whom in turn probably support a family of five as well as themselves.

We have tried to harness the natural environment immediately around the lodge, including it in-situ as part of the flowing lines of the walls or the different levels of the floors. The overall aesthetic is a Japanese and African mix.

As you can see we are an 'open-plan' lodge in design and have let the environment take what it wants from the structures. To grow where it pleases, under floors, in walls, over and through windows, as if it was a purposefully allowed natural reflection. At the same time, we have brought in water, the most natural of elements, which directly effects our own spirit and connection with nature as we come from water in the first instance. The soothing white walls are ferrous cement structures made from Hessian cloth and chicken wire, then simply plastered to finish. We used different cement pigments to achieve desired colours in the walls and the floors. The small wood framing on the roofs came from the abundant cordia bush of the ranch, which is regenerative, and the thatch came from the bulrush of the swamps. Ventilation was added to each roof for airflow when it gets very hot. The design has been very carefully thought out to combine the aesthetic appeal of natural materials from the outer environment with the assistance of imported materials, such as cement to set up the overall effect that is Shompole Lodge.

Solar energy provides approximately 80% of the electricity used here, a clean renewable energy source. The remaining 20% is supplemented from a generator, as a back up charge to our battery bank. In time, as the business allows we are looking to further invest in renewable energy so that all our energy comes from the sun or other renewable sources.

All our water comes from a natural spring near the lodge. The off-take is proportional to the quantity sustainably produced from the spring. We estimate that we use 20% of its total output of 120,000 litres produced in a 24-hour period. Unused water is allowed to spill over into the water hole below camp and is carried back from the water hole to the tree-lined river below the lodge thus continuing the natural cycle. Our drains from the washing areas have a grease trap, which separates the grease from the water before it is released back into the surrounding environment through a system of natural sumps.

The Earth:

The earth, the soil is nature's sump through which all nutrients are released into the food chain and eventually returned.

We aim to capture and keep as much nutrient in the surrounding ecosystem and minimise the losses from it. 50% of our toilets are 'dry composting toilets'. These use the natural metabolic processes of microorganisms which aerobically breakdown all the organic wastes to a fine compost, which is subsequently used as a fertilizer on our gardens and greens. Additionally, we compost all our organic wastes from the kitchen, like all fruit/vegetable peelings and wastage. These all add a valuable source of nutrients into the soil of our garden, and through careful management it produces an exceptional array of fruit and vegetables back to our kitchen.

In the kitchen we have created a system of inorganic waste collection in the form of glass and plastics, which are collected, bagged and sent out of Shompole. The glass is recycled through a local glass making industry near Nairobi. For plastic, we are linking with a fencing scheme, which recycles plastic into fence posts, used to reduce human wildlife conflict in areas of Kenya and to reduce the use of wood, a resource under increasing pressure in Kenya today.

Trees are extremely important in arid areas. They stabilise the ecosystem through space and time. Their deep roots and vast canopy enable them to grow in areas inhospitable to other plants, adapting the microclimate surrounding them to allow other plant growth, as well as providing much needed fodder and shade during the driest months of the year. Often, when all other food sources are absent. Understanding this vital role we have established an indigenous tree nursery, so as to replenish and plant on site and off site. At present, the planting has concentrated around the area of the lodge but we are extending the program to the community in the near future, as a means of providing a sustainable tree resource for fuel-wood and livestock fodder within the community.

…A location that was carefully chosen for the views and the breezes..

The prevailing breeze flows in through the lodge from the South, coming across the Loliondo Highlands in Tanzania. With shade it cools all our surroundings, and ensures the efficiency of a cool store for the kitchen's vegetables and for the gas driven freezers.

The cool store is built under shade, with charcoal lined walls that are constantly soaked with piped spring water. Positioned to receive the sun and the wind the interior is cooled through the natural process of evaporation. Through this system we have found an efficient method of storage that relies on the wind and sun.

"Shompole is about more than just recycled building materials and composting loos. Those elements are a given, but it's Russell's partnership with the local Maasai community in the building, running and management of the business that is unique." (Vogue, Feb 2002)

In the very near future we will be starting the honey business venture as another part of Maa O'leng. This will increase employment and revenue, much needed by the community, as well as building on traditional skills and providing a food, in the form of the honey itself.

Additionally, Maa O'leng has integrated a furniture venture into the business. It has supplied the lodge with all its furniture. This is teaching additional skills and capacity to members of the community with pieces made from the dead wood of Ficus trees, that lay scattered all over the riverine areas of the ranch. Now, it is marketing its products within Kenya and abroad, and realising the community another revenue stream from dead wood and increasing the community's capacity to use that resource sustainably, without impacting on its role as a refuge for invertebrates. Further, we are looking into utilising local occurring products such as salt, mud and extracts of plants for beauty & spa treatments at the lodge.

Other areas that need our attention are water, health and education issues within the group ranch itself, as without these the conservation ethic of the Project would not be as successful. Inroads, into the start-up of a mobile clinic have been made; free drugs from Switzerland and support from agencies here in Kenya has been received but all is in the initial stages. These actions have been very positive and remarkably generous, though the need for promotion is an ongoing exercise.

To assist with this, of the US$20 conservation fee you pay, US$10 is directed towards community development, dispersed through the Trust Fund. The remaining US$10 is used to maintain the conservancy and wildlife throughout the Ranch area e.g. road building, waterholes, ranger's salaries, consolation payments for human/wildlife conflicts. All this work is on-going and as funds allow our aim is to develop both the natural resources of the ranch and the community together in line with our 4C's concept.

Through all these schemes we hope to be able to sustain good eco-practices, or allow existing projects this support and generate more employment overall within the group ranch. We see the need for these projects to fall under their relevant sections within the Maa O'leng Company so that it becomes a profitable and sustainable resource that initially was started by the conservation ideology of Art of Ventures. There are many factors that will contribute to the success of the venture of which you are a very valuable contributor by staying with us at Shompole. The Maasai are inevitably going to move forward, so let's bring them Forward in a constructive way.