Driving to Saruni Samburu is a magical experience. You roll through scrubby, sunburnt acacia woodland and at frequent intervals the driver is likely to point out the lodge “just up ahead.” You, however, can see nothing but scrub and huge granite outcrops known as kopjes. The Jeep reaches the base of one of these kopjes and then blithely drives straight on up the smooth rock until, quite suddenly, you crest the hill and spread out below you is a huge vista of the north Kenyan wilderness, and almost melting into the rock face, Saruni Samburu.

Put simply, this is one of the most stunningly situated and luxurious lodges in Kenya. It consists of a dozen, enormous open-plan … well, we’re not really sure what to call them, but “cave villas” probably comes closest to hitting the mark. Each villa is made up of a lounge filled with safari antiques, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a rock-carved bath. Each has a wooden terrace with views you’ll never forget and an outdoor shower. The whole lot is half-buried into the rock face.

At the summit of the kopje is the reception area and dining room where superb Kenyan-Italian fusion meals are served and aperos are sipped in-front of an open fire pit. Below is an infinity pool where shimmering glossy starlings come to drink as you swim.

But of course a safari isn’t just about out-of-this-world pampering. It’s about wildlife and the wilderness, and Saruni Samburu excels in this department. The lodge sits in the middle of the huge private Kalama conservancy which abuts the famous Samburu National Reserve, and although the conservancy has less water, and therefore less wildlife, than the reserve, there’s still plenty of classic north Kenyan wildlife here including elephants, Somali ostrich, gerunuk and grevys zebra. It’s also very simple to drive into the reserve itself.

To sum up, Saruni Samburu won’t overwhelm you with savannah plains packed horizon-to-horizon with large mammals, but it’s perfect for those after a refined, wilderness experience in a part of Kenya often overlooked by mass safari tourism.