As global warming and drought take their toll on Kenya’s cattle, climate and communities, some Samburu and Maasai villages are swapping cows for camels. Could camels become a future staple of northern Kenya’s wilderness experiences—and what are the issues around it? Samantha Falewée finds out more.
In the gray of early morning on Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, I stand in a corral made of spiky acacia branches, each with thorns as long as my thumb.
Sixteen gangly, single-humped camels mill around me. Weighing more than 1,000 pounds each, and standing tall above me at over six feet, they’re surprisingly quiet in the soft dirt. They’re waiting for George Lemuge, a Samburu camel-owner, to open the gate so they can graze in the savanna beyond.
Camels aren’t native to Africa. You might not expect to go on a game drive and find, rather than a long-lashed giraffe among the treetops, a scruffy dromedary. But they’re here—and these animals have no idea of just how important they are, what they might represent for the future of pastoral tribes in northern Kenya.
For at least 3,000 years, semi-nomadic tribes in northern Kenya—such as the Samburu, and their cousins to the south, the Maasai—have maintained traditions that rely on cattle as a central part of life: Economically, spiritually, nutritionally, and socially.
But during a horrific drought that covered much of the Horn of Africa, at its worst in 2022 and 2023, cows died in the thousands. That’s like having your life savings account emptied in a matter of weeks. Peoples’ livelihoods, their futures, were ruined. One Maasai community leader told me about a man who lost his 200 head of cattle almost overnight, and was found trying to hang himself.
“The northern side of Kenya is getting drier all the time from climate change. Cows won’t survive another dry season like we had in 2022.”
- Supukia, Maasai guide
It was these droughts that made some communities seriously consider camels as an alternate source of income, transport and nutrition (communities such as the Rendille have long been using camels). Camels drink significantly less water than cows, and typically require minimal veterinary care. They can browse on scrubby trees instead of relying on grass, and their milk is rich in health benefits—in fact, 80 percent of the globe’s camels are reared by tribal communities in Kenya.
As a result, hardier camels have been herded into Kenya, plodding south from places like South Sudan and Ethiopia. And in small steps, some more than others, tribespeople are incorporating these desert-dwellers alongside their cattle, goats, and sheep.
I’ve traveled to northern Kenya to learn more, staying at small lodges that operate in collaboration with Indigenous communities.
My trip begins as I wait for my ride at the Lewa Conservancy, a few hours north of Nairobi. This tawny savannah is home to some of Africa’s arid-adapted creatures: The thin-striped, endangered Grevy’s zebra, the reticulated giraffe, and the majestic oryx. But I’m asking Supukia, a Maasai guide who prefers to be addressed by his first name only, about camels.
“The northern side of Kenya is getting drier all the time from climate change,” he tells me. “Cows won’t survive another dry season like we had in 2022.” His last words are drowned out by a small charter plane that touches down on the dusty airstrip. It’s arrived to take me 100 miles further north, into Samburu County.
Also known as Samburuland, this 8,100-square-mile expanse is named after its biggest tribe, although other communities live in Samburu County too: The Borana, Pokot, Rendille, and Turkana. As we fly, I see the land below me is a parched orange with pockets of gray-green scrub. When Kenya was under British colonialism, which ended in 1963, settlers could only access this land via a special permit—so-called ‘development’ of British rule didn’t extend this far. Today, that means the sprawl of big-name safari companies so prevalent in the southern Maasai Mara hasn’t reached this area. Yet.
The plane eases along a hulking span of mountains—the Matthews Range, or Oldonyo Lenkiyeu in Samburu—and we touch down at Kalepo Camp. I walk into camp on a path of thick sand; on either side, dense bush quivers with the chirps and rustles of birdlife. The camp’s gathering place is an open-air lounge that looks out onto the dry bed of the Kikwar River. There are thick couches to sink into, and a large coffee table barely visible under books, a large jaw bone, carved wooden cowbells, animal statues, and an aloe plant.
Run by Rob and Storm Mason, this five-tent camp represents the couple’s decade-plus of working in high-end hospitality. Here in the surrounding conservancy, there are elephants, giraffes, kudus, lions, and leopards. But Kalepo isn’t a standard game-viewing lodge: Its focus is to grow understanding and exchange with the Samburu.
I meet my two guides, Joel Kimeron Lolienta and Daniel Lokini Galgoroule, and we set out on an easy bush walk before dinner. One of the Masons’ dogs, a dachshund named Badger, joins with such nonchalance that I blink as she outpaces me, barely taller than my ankles.
As we walk, I ask Joel about his take on camels, and the conversation turns to dowries, which typically consist of cattle. But these days, a new component has emerged: A respectable dowry must include two camels. “A high dowry could be 11 or 12 cows, plus two camels. That’s very expensive,” Joel tells me.
I spend the next couple days learning about Samburu culture. One morning, I crouch next to a singing well as a warrior fills a water trough for thirsty goats; on a late afternoon, I listen as a group of young men rib each other about who can run the fastest. The Masons’ nine-year-old son, Angus, is often with the warriors, moving among them like kin.
I laugh as Dolly Parton’s rollicking ‘9 to 5’ starts to play as we move, fast, over a wild world of drop-off cliffs and skeletal trees. The Great Rift Valley spreads out before us like a dream, an endless, brutal desert.
Rob and Storm join us for meals at camp, but most of my time is in the bush with Joel and Daniel. They are professional, caring, extensively detailed in the information they share, engaged in their communities, and clearly proud of their identity.
Before breakfast one day, I chat to Mark Lepakiyo, a warrior on staff who owns a herd of 40 camels with his family. Given what I’m learning about the animals’ value, that number indicates significant wealth—and a big part of that is what the animals can produce.
“Camel milk is medicine,” Mark tells me, enthusiastically. It’s known that camel milk is low in fat, rich in calcium and vitamins, and has been shown to lower blood sugar and insulin levels. And in Samburuland, it provides life-giving sustenance. It’s common among warriors, the sick, and women who have recently given birth to drink a mixture of camel (or cow) milk and blood. “Blood and milk are warriors’ favorite meal, taken once a day,” Daniel tells me.
My curiosity is piqued, and I ask Joel if I can try camel milk (I do not ask for blood.) I’m warned that it can be especially rich or salty, but when I taste the milk, the most distinct flavor is a faint smokiness. The tribe stores milk in gourds made of wood from the African myrrh tree that’s smoked for hours, which helps the unpasteurized milk keep for days at a time.
I don’t see a single cow—I’m told they’re grazing up the mountains—but we do come across a small group of camels. They’re untethered and look healthy, eating off acacia trees like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
But for all this discussion, many of the Samburu I talk to don’t expect camels to flourish in the area any time soon. A plant called the wooly caper bush grows here, and their leaves are poisonous to camels. But as cattle become more vulnerable to climate change, that makes the Samburu more reliant on other forms of income.
Over dinner one night, as a group of elephants rustles in the trees in the fading dusk, Rob and Storm acknowledge the gravity of ensuring that the camp’s relationship with locals is a positive one. Rob tells me about conversations he’s had with those in the safari industry who worry that tribal life as it exists today may disappear in as little as 20 years.
The Masons’ goal then, is to help the Samburu develop in ways that are sustainable long-term, without losing core tenants of their culture; that includes their efforts to employ women. “We’re taking steps towards employing ladies, while remaining respectful of cultural and social restraints,” Storm says.
“I mean, it’s 2024,” Rob says. “Most of the Kalepo staff are on social media: Twitter and Snapchat and things like that.” I think of Daniel. Like his peers, he wears brilliantly-colored beading that loops around his fingers, forehead, waist, bare chest, and arms. On his left wrist, amid the bangles of vivid red, sky blue, dark green, and tangerine orange is a pristine white AppleWatch.
“I wear my beads full-time,” Daniel says. “It’s the same with all Samburu warriors.” These adornments are a point of pride; they’ve earned the Samburu the moniker, ‘the Butterfly People’.
It’s time to move to the next camp. I want to spend days, even weeks longer at Kalepo, but the ride out more than makes up for it. Amid a thunderous roar, a Robinson R66 helicopter lands near the dry riverbed, sending a family of warthogs scurrying. Out from the pilot seat slides Andrew Francombe, the founder of Kenya Helicopters.
I exchange Instagram handles with Joel and Daniel, shake hands and give hugs, and climb into the chopper. I start to grin: The helicopter is open-sided, doorless. I click in my seatbelt—giving it a couple quick yanks to be sure—and slide a pair of heavy headphones over my head. The blades above me start to whir.
Within seconds we’re rising—200 feet, 500 feet, open to the elements. The wind rips away my elastic hair-tie and I ball up my hair in a fist. Andrew noses the helicopter north, gives some power to the Rolls-Royce turbine engine, and switches on the sound system. I laugh as Dolly Parton’s rollicking ‘9 to 5’ starts to play as we move, fast, over a wild world of drop-off cliffs and skeletal trees. The Great Rift Valley spreads out before us like a dream, an endless, brutal desert.
“You can’t let cows graze alone, so before, we had to have many people help look after them. But camels can look after themselves. Now our children go to school, and the camels can graze at the same time.”
- Mary Simaloi Lempoe, Samburu staff at Ol Lentille
We fly in the helicopter for an incredible eight hours, pausing to land on different terrain: Sand dunes; heaps of black lava rock; a brown salt pan whose thick soil is moist as chocolate cake. I see a herd of oryxes galloping beneath us, and Nile crocodiles splash into marshy water as our shadow passes overhead. We alight on the lip of Nabiyotum Crater on the shore of Lake Turkana, which straddles the Ethiopia-Kenya border. At one point, like fragments of pink paper thrown up in the sky, millions of flamingos swirl around the helicopter. We even stop to swim in a pond, hundreds of thousands of miles from the nearest town, where the alkaline-rich water is slippery on my skin.
During one stop, Andrew tells me about his ongoing project: Working with local chiefs and conservation partners to establish a new conservancy in the Suguta Valley, an area we’ve just flown over. “What is conservation? Conservation is people,” says Andrew. “It isn’t just wildlife. Conservation is the people, the wildlife, and the people’s livestock, in the whole area.”
We pack back into the chopper, and I finally see—in a stretch of the Kaisut Desert so desolate that human life seems impossible—camels. This far north, tribes such as the Rendille are known for keeping them in large numbers. As we pass over a large man-made corral, I lean sideways into the wind to squint down at it. I count 88 camels. I see no cows.
Late that afternoon, thoroughly windswept and a touch overwhelmed by what I’ve seen, I arrive at Ol Lentille lodge. Consisting of four houses, the lodge sits on a steep, rocky hilltop, one of the highest points on the Laikipia Plateau. I can look out and see for miles. The surrounding conservancy is a 40,000-acre stretch of land owned by nearby Maasai and Samburu communities, who share in the revenue of the area’s conservation fees.
I set out on a hike with Maasai head guide Solomon Kimani Lentiranko. Today, he’s the chairperson of the Kijabe Community, the same group that owns the lodge, and spent his childhood roaming the territory he’s guiding me through now. He points out an African paradise flycatcher with its long, rust-red tail, and at one point, we hear the unmistakable ‘cough’ of a leopard, hidden somewhere in the trees nearby.
In this semi-arid landscape, I also learn that camel safaris—which consist of walking to a mobile camp, accompanied by camels who carry the equipment—are a popular activity.
“Having the camels with you means you’re able to travel to more remote areas,” Kerry Glen, co-owner of Karisia Walking Safaris, tells me in an email a week later. “Walking is a great way to slow down, travel through a beautiful landscape, and reconnect with yourself.”
Kerry, who has worked in the safari industry for some 30 years, has seen an increase in this type of excursion as travelers want to be active and learn more about northern Kenya through a different lens. Since tribespeople from the Maasai, Samburu, and Turkana tribes guide the trips, Kerry also points out that camel safaris are a great way to learn about local life.
Under a heavily clouded sky early the next morning, it’s time to meet some camels head-on. Mary Simaloi Lempoe, a Samburu housekeeper at Ol Lentille, takes me to George Lemuge’s home, where the camels are milked each morning—Lempoe lives in a nearby Samburu community which shares the revenue of Ol Lentille’s conservation fees. He has an agreement with Ol Lentille in which he sells a gallon of camel milk to the lodge each day for the staff to drink it with their meals.
As I stand in the corral, George tells me how he and his father walked north for 14 days to buy their first camels from the Turkana tribe—his favorite was a female named Mao. The investment paid off: During the extreme drought a couple years back, almost all the community’s cows died—but George didn’t lose a single camel. “Only the families with camels had any milk to drink,” George tells me. “So we rotated, different community members came here every morning and we gave it to them.”
As I gaze at a cute four-month-old calf with curly brown hair, Mary tells me about another important impact of rearing camels: Education. “You can’t let cows graze alone, so before, we had to have many people help look after them. But camels can look after themselves,” she tells me. “Now our children go to school, and the camels can graze at the same time.”
Mary shares her own story of how she had battled an abusive father to pursue a life that is still unusual in Samburu culture—she went to school, worked at Ol Lentille, and now she’s a single mother raising two kids. It’s early morning, and as Mary talks, a gaggle of young children walk past on their way to school. Mary calls over a girl in a bright red sweater; it’s her eight-year old daughter, Miriam Nangida. Miriam is shy; I squat to her level and say hello. The pride and love emanating from Mary as she looks at her daughter is so strong I feel it like a forcefield.
I don’t want to intrude on Miriam’s space, so I back up and smile as Mary waves her daughter off to school. Behind me, a camel lets out a grumbling call, impatient to be let out to graze, into this land that it now calls home.
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The writer traveled to northern Kenya with Stanley Safaris, a specialist African operator that works exclusively with privately-owned, small-footprint lodges. She stayed at Kalepo Camp, Ol Lentille, and Lengishu, properties centered around community partnership and wildlife conservation.
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Samantha Falewée is a French-American writer and editor focused on the intersection of wildlife conservation and Indigenous culture. You can find her byline in Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Virtuoso, and others. Her editing work has been awarded for 'Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Travel' by the North American Travel Journalists Association. She is a certified wildlife tracker by the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa.
