PROFILE: Close encounters in the Maasai Mara

Tuesday 21 July 2020

Imagine what it feels like to wake up in the morning and watch the golden rays of the sunrise over Kilimanjaro - the private aircraft that brought you there is waiting on the bush airstrip to take you on the next adventure.

That’s what former JCG student, turned professional safari guide, Kim Pierce is offering small groups of travellers next year, sharing her passion for Africa, it’s people and wildlife in a new business venture.

She’ll be hosting and guiding clients on luxury safaris herself, using the extensive knowledge and experience she gained working in Kenya for over 10 years.

And despite covid-19, she told Express about how her trips will be different to all others...

It’s one thing seeing these majestic animals in the wild. But it’s quite another when you have a really close encounter, as Kim Pierce had on a family holiday when she was 15.

“One of the first game drives I had in Botswana, a male lion came and rubbed himself up against the side of the car and the mane was actually touching my leg. It was a really close animal encounter. I actually remember seeing the lodge managers and thinking ‘that’s their life’.”

Pictured: Scenic Air Safaris takes off. 

Although born and raised in Jersey, Africa is very much a part of who Kim is. Her mother grew up in what was Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and after that first trip, Kim returned to Africa the following year, working in a Zulu community school. After leaving school, she realised her dream and trained as a professional Safari Guide in South Africa. 

“I always wanted to do something out there, whether that was community work or wildlife conservation, I wasn’t quite sure. At school they try and put you down the university route, but I was definitely against that. I was just playing around online and found this course where you could go out and become a Safari Guide and I thought ‘yes, I’ll do that.’” 

Kim had already built up experience working within the hospitality industry here, and had worked at the Zoo. Without worrying about any debts from higher education, she had the freedom to go and do what she wanted. 

Pictured: Kim with Richard Branson and the partner owners of the Mahari Mzuri Lodge. 

“There wasn’t any stress on it leading to anything. My family just thought it was like a second gap year, and that I was going to do this thing and come back in a year. Whereas I had decided that was what I wanted.” 

And what lay ahead was an intensive course with six months of classroom learning; a further six months was spent putting that knowledge into practice, before she was able to become a fully qualified guide. 

Kim spent over a decade living and working in Africa, which included managing lodges for Sir Richard Branson in Kenya, and founding her own community and conservation trust that supports the Maasai way of life and conservation-led tourism in those communities. 

“When I went out in 2009 there was a severe drought. The animals were literally dropping dead in the reserves and the Maasai Community was really struggling in this first lodge I went to work for. So, I started the community conservation trust and worked really closely with them for about a year. I had a really close relationship with them, and they gave me a Maasai name, Sanapei.” 

It means a most successful woman in the Maasai language and has cemented the close relationship Kim has with the communities she worked with which continues to this day. It’s one of the unique elements she can draw on in her latest venture. 

Pictured: Kim and the team at the Nairobi camp.

When Kim returned home from Africa, she became part of the Travel Counsellors franchise, which is a network of 1900 travel experts from around the world that arrange holidays and itineraries for clients.

By their nature, they are a bit more than simply holidays. 

“I refer to it as being like a travel PA. I meet the clients over coffee or go around to their houses. I could be doing the wedding plans for their children, and hopefully one day the kids will use me on their first family holiday. You grow with the client. I do everything from the flights to the lounge passes, to the transfers to the experiences, whether that’s a boat trip or helicopter ride. And they have all the support of a huge global company that has a 24-hour duty office.”

It was as she was working as a Travel Counsellor that Kim hit on the idea of combining that with her knowledge, contacts and qualifications gained while in Africa to start offering the complete package. 

Based on her own experiences living and working there, Kim will be personally leading small groups of between six and eight people twice a year on tours of the areas she knows and loves. All the experiences include expert guidance from Kim and other specialists she’s worked with in the past. 

“For the clients it means it means we’ll go in and sit in some of the mamma's huts, we’ll have a cup of tea and we’ll have translation from some of the guides for us as well. The Maasai feel a lot more comfortable that it’s me, and they’ll trust the people I am bringing, so they’ll be more open. We can really ask them more questions about their culture and traditions, which are fascinating.”

The itinerary is flexible, and, as Kim is the booking agent, can be changed to take in other excursions including stop-offs in other countries and even islands in the Indian Ocean.

“It’s my passion. I’ve always wanted to do this since coming back home. The genuine reason for wanting to go is to show them those places and show them those people which for me are part of my culture. I spent my twenties out there and it’s so much within my heart. I'm not trying to sell this to get money, I’m trying to sell to get people out there.” 

And in that, Kim is lucky because she gets to continue enjoying her passion for travel, conservation and learning about other cultures while also making that possible for other people to have the same experience.  

The travel industry ground to a halt when the corona virus placed the world into lockdown. Kim launched her luxury safari service just before it all began. While that has hit the general work of the Travel Counsellors, the first of her tailor-made trips aren’t due to take place until February and September next year, well away from the busier months in the Maasai Mara.

“Tourism is one of the main sources of income in Kenya and right now the wildlife and the communities need us more than ever. The wildlife trusts have seen a drop in funding, communities have lost income through tourists staying at lodges which pays a ‘bed night’ fee in conservancies to the communities who own that land, no sales of local jewellery or woodwork and no tourists visiting their homesteads.

Pictured: The view from the Satao Elerai Lodge.

“Having a private plane means that from leaving Nairobi, our trips are self-contained, and we will be going when there are fewer tourists. As we use the wildlife conservancies rather than the main national parks, we avoid the crowds anyway.” 

Clearly, living and working in Kenya’s open savannahs had a profound effect on Kim, shaping who she is and encouraging her to share her passion with others.

“For me it’s the back to basics simplicity of life out there. We’re not the dominant species, we have to live alongside the animals, we have to respect them and live in their world. And there’s something really humbling about that.

“Each day, each moment is as it comes. You don’t know if you are going to see any animals. You don’t know whether you’ll turn a corner and see a lion. So, you are very much in that moment which I don’t think you get in modern day life. It’s an amazing way to switch off and take time to respect the natural world around you.”