Travel

Stylish comfort up Kajiado hill - VIDEO

Building a multi million-shillings log resort in the middle of nowhere, at the tip of a hill and in the sleepy Kajiado County is not for faint-hearted investors. However, three years ago, a local investor tired of the city hustle and bustle actualised her dream to set up a cabin-like Lerruat Log Resort.

At the restaurant, built on 10 acres of land at the apex of Mlima Tamu hills, nature blends in easily.

Fun at the log restort begins at the foot of the hill. The snaking gravel road up the hill gets lost into thickets. Visitors must conquer the terrains up the hill for 1.5 kilometres. The route is not meant for jalopies but real machines that can be able to choke cough and keep running up the hill. Some visitors opt to climb the hill as part of their escapades.

However, the resort has standby off-road rescue vehicles for visitors whose cars fail to withstand the terrains.

“Lerruat” means a tradition makeshift Maasai bed in Maa dialect. The resort's manager Beatrice Ndunda says that the owner used to visit the hills for years before an idea cropped in her mind to set up a hotel.

She used to share roast goat ribs under an indigenous tree with locals for a couple of years. It used to be her weekend getaway. After she built the hotel, the indigenous tree now make part of the modern bar set by the end of the cliff.

The beauty of the resort is in not only the log structure, but also the chirping birds, large windows that allow guests to enjoy the beautiful scenery, a massage in a thicket on a hill, eating nyama choma roasted by Maasai morans and watching Lake Magadi in a clear morning.

The resort standing 7,000 feet above the sea level is located 80 kilometres from Nairobi, through Namanga Road.

For honeymooners

Lerruat resort is constructed on three levels, following the natural slopes of the hill. The lowest level has rooms. The second level houses the resort and cottages. The top levels have three storeys with other rooms overlooking the restaurant.

Owing to its location, temperatures can drop drastically.

“Sometimes the resort is enveloped by clouds making it too cold,” says Beatrice.

Job Merian, a regular visitor at the lodge says it is addictive to people who want peace of mind. “This is a small heaven to me and my family. When I am here, I cut myself from the rest of the world and enjoy nature. I also come for its nyama choma and night bonfires,’’ he said.

Lerruat which has 55 beds has become a new honeymoon destination for those who can fly to the foot of the hill. The owner plans to increase bed space to 150 and build an infinity swimming pool at the edge of the cliff, meant to create an illusion that a visitor is hanging on the clouds when in the pool.