Inquisitive, reticulated giraffes walked gracefully up to us while our horses grazed. Some days we slipped through a herd of sixty or more, towering like a cathedral. I rode where the only trails are elephant trails, the sky is so vast it seemed to wrap around me, and the Southern Cross and Big Dipper sat in the same sky. Horses carried me through the still wild bush of the Laikipia District in Kenya.

I lived at the El Karama Ranch on the equator, training horses and guiding horseback safaris. The ranch was situated forty-two kilometers northwest of Nanyuki at the end of a jolting, red dirt road. The Grant Family, originating from Scotland two generations ago, welcomed me into their beautiful old ranch house to live and work with the horses.

I spent my days with the daughter, Laria, who was a strong, capable young woman. She was needed everywhere and seemed to be there with ease and a gentle voice. She was very much involved in the ranch, raising a stud herd of nine-hundred Sahiwal cattle. El Karama was also developing ecotourism, which included the posh horseback safaris and self-serve bandas on the river.

The horses at El Karama were exceptional, strong and sure-footed. Thirty of them were turned out on 14,000 acres to graze, causing their weight to fluctuate with the seasons. They got fat and slick during the rainy season before thinning down as the dry season progressed and grazing became slim. Some days they would rip past, a beautiful array of color; bays, chestnuts, buckskins, grays, dark browns, and paints.

My days consisted of training nine young horses. They ranged from three to seven years old, a whole quiver of sizes and attitudes. I worked in a round pen as well as a full sized arena. The tack room was clean and filled with beautiful, deep-seated saddles from Britain. I got up just after six to train before breakfast, while the sun lifted over the Laldaiga Hills to the left of Mount Kenya, eventually twinkling in the dew-licked grass around the riding school. Early morning mist, from the saturated night air sinking as the sun rose, hovered in the river valley. I also rode before and after lunch when heat brings all color to the same shade.

Ghazelle was my very favorite out of the young horses that I trained. He collected and floated from the first day I taught him to lunge. I got him going well enough on the trail to finish the summer guiding 8-day horseback safaris on the El Karama private reserve. He turned out to be a joy to ride and having him with me was the most rewarding culmination of the work I did there.

We led our clients into the bush that dropped in every direction from the ranch house, trotting up the ridges as the zebra, impala, gazelle, eland and oryx lifted and spilled into the whistling thorn. In the afternoon, rains rocked over Mount Kenya onto the veldt below. Cool air sucked towards the building and bursting dark clouds. The fresh smell of rain filled the thick green gullies. Each night we camped somewhere new, our supplies moved with camels. We nestled into the warm rocks of an escarpment, looking West toward the Great Rift Valley, a horizon like the sea.

The rains came and went in the time I was at El Karama. Tall grass reached to the bellies of the plains game and tossed around in a warm dry breeze. Guests came from around the world for the most exquisite melding of horses and Africa. Elephants sifted across an opposite hillside. The tough loose skin of their feet made wrinkles in their massive shallow footprints that dotted the banks of the check dam where we watered our horses, our shadows hovering on the surface of the thick brown water.

This spring I am headed back to El Karama for an all women’s retreat March 22-April 5. If you would like to join me, please contact me at sarahlee.lawrence@gmail.com.

SARAHLEE LAWRENCE is a river rafting guide and experiential educator who lives an adventurous life running rivers, researching riparian environments, training horses, farming and writing... {more»}

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