Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with Kenya

Lounging on a picnic blanket high up on Kenya’s Oloololo Escarpment, I felt I had been here before. The goldenhued savannah view was instantly recognisable. That is because this part of the Maasai Mara, known as the Mara Triangle, is where some of the most famous scenes in Out of Africa were filmed.

Where my husband and I had settled down for lunch had been carefully chosen. It was the exact spot where a wistful Meryl Streep (playing Danish author Karen Blixen) and a smouldering Robert Redford (playing her lover Denys Finch Hatton) posed for the iconic film poster, one of the most recognisable images in cinema history.

Based on Danish noblewoman Karen Blixen’s life spent running a coffee plantation in British East Africa (now Kenya) and her love affair with the aristocratic big-game hunter Denys Finch Hatton, the film went on to win seven Oscars when it was released on December 18, 1985. The safaris, Finch Hatton’s biplane and the epic scenery captured the imagination of cinema audiences all over the world and sold Kenya as a destination in a way that no holiday brochure ever could.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with KenyaA wistful Meryl Streep and a smouldering Robert Redford  Photo: REX FEATURES

Little has changed in this quiet corner of the Mara since director Sydney Pollack yelled “Cut!” 30 years ago, except for a new place to stay called Angama Mara. A five-minute walk from this picnic spot, Angama (which means “suspended in mid-air” in Swahili) offers subtle nods to Out of Africa, without nostalgically forcing the point. Staff can point you to the exact spot where Finch Hatton was buried in the film (although in reality he is buried in Nairobi) and they can expertly arrange your own Out of Africa champagne picnic like we chose to do.

At the lodge, Kate Fitzgerald, daughter of industry veterans and Angama owners Nicky and Steve Fitzgerald, tells me that the family have struck a careful Out of Africa balance to keep all guests happy.

"Angama’s view is so wide and everlasting that you may, as I did, begin to believe that you can see the curvature of the earth"

“The spirit of the film is woven into Angama, but we play it up or down to suit each guest. The guiding style is based on Blixen’s classic storytelling, but there’s no Karen Blixen suite,” she says.

It is the view here that really dominates and impresses. At more than 1,000ft above the Great Rift Valley, Angama’s view is so wide and everlasting that you may, as I did, begin to believe that you can see the curvature of the earth.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with Kenya"It is the view here that really dominates and impresses"  Photo: ANGAMA

The design of Angama makes a refreshing change, too. There are two separate safari camps, each with 15 tented suites. Eschewing the classic safari look, the chic, spacious canvas tents are minimalist with polished parquet floors and subtle splashes of Maasai red. On the first morning, from my kingsize bed, I watched hot-air balloons drifting by the cliff-like walls of the escarpment, silently punctuating the blue haze of dawn.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with Kenya"Little has changed in this quiet corner of the Mara in the last 30 years"  Photo: ANGAMA

One afternoon, after a morning’s safari spent playing avian bingo with our outstanding guide Geoffrey Maina Njoroge (three marabou storks, four ibis, one lilac-breasted roller spotted in just 10 minutes), I sat on a rocking chair on the deck of the tent. The 180-degree view was completely different this time. A brooding, fist-shaped cloud gradually punched through the sky towards camp, painting the plains golden, brown and then black, before it exploded. The refreshing rain thundered down on to the plains, scattering animals and filling the rivers. This left me with the thought that if the Mara was theatre, then this had to be the best seat in the house.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with Kenya

Next, we headed to the Mara River and to Mara Enkipai, a 45-minute drive away. This stone house and camp was where Maasai anthropologist Jacqueline Roumeguere-Eberhardt lived for 27 years and also happens to be where the most romantic Out of Africa scene took place, when Redford massages shampoo into Streep’s hair, rinsing it with water from an enamel jug, while reciting lines from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Today, hippos doze in the water, pacified by the lullabies of the river, but the romantic atmosphere remains.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with KenyaHippos wallow in a Kenyan waterhole  Photo: AP/FOTOLIA

Back at Angama, we strolled into the library and pressed play on the DVD recorder. To view Out of Africa in situ, with a chorus of bullfrogs in the background, was simply too tempting. Then, as we watched, we spotted another Out of Africa motif on the Africana-lined bookshelves: a yellow mini replica Gipsy Moth aircraft, just like the one in the film. It was a hint at what was to come next.

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Two short flights later, we touched down at a private airstrip at Segera Retreat in Laikipia, north west of Mount Kenya. On a 55,000-acre ranch (three times the size of Manhattan), Segera is owned by the wealthy conservationist Jochen Zeitz.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with KenyaThe view from Angama  Photo: ANGAMA

A short drive from our thatched villa was a small aircraft hangar. The doors were pulled back and as the light rushed in, sunlight bounced off a small two-seater aircraft. The shiny custard-yellow colour immediately gave it away – this was G-AAMY, the original Gipsy Moth biplane used in the film (although the letters were altered slightly to G-AAMT). Sold to Zeitz at a Paris auction in 2013, it was flown for around 50 hours during the filming of Out of Africa, creating some of the best-known scenes in the film, including the image of the biplane rousing an enormous flock of pink flamingos. Fitted with a new Australian-built engine, today it occasionally soars again over Kenya’s landscape, flown by Zeitz.

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At dinner I pored over the original Out of Africa media pack that Zeitz had also collected (along with unpublished photographs of Blixen). The only promotional shot in it is the picnic scene that became the movie poster.

Segera is not an easy place to leave. It is exclusive, with just six timber villas, and has views towards Mount Kenya, a renovated stable that doubles as a bar and art gallery, and fantastic cooking that results in healthy curries, salads and the best breakfasts in Kenya.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with KenyaVillas at Angama  Photo: ANGAMA

To complete this Out of Africa homage, there was one more must-see sight to explore, the Karen Blixen Museum in Nairobi. Driving from Wilson Airport, we passed huge posters welcoming President Obama “back home” to Kenya. This was back in July, when the last-minute announcement of his imminent arrival had sent local tour operators into a spin – with major roads and air space closed – but Abercrombie & Kent had rejigged our itinerary so that we were left unaffected.

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We stayed at Hemingways in the quiet Karen district of Nairobi, an area named after Blixen. From here it is a mere 10-minute drive to the museum – Blixen’s former house – where visitors can admire her paintings, jasmine-scented lawns, Louis Vuitton suitcases and black and white photographs of Blixen with her friends, including Marilyn Monroe. My guide tells me that the house and former coffee plantation receives 60,000 visitors a year, but that Finch Hatton’s grave, 13 miles away, gets only 10 per cent of this number. We drove there next.

The grave – carefully tended by a local farming family – is 300m higher than the house. The air is different. Blixen describes it in one of her letters as “clear as a glass of water” with “light sweet winds”. After Finch Hatton’s death, Blixen placed a white sheet on his grave so she could always see it from her house.

"After Finch Hatton’s death, Blixen placed a white sheet on his grave so she could always see it from her house"

On the tomb is a plaque that reads: “He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast.”

These are the lines from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” recited by Redford in the famous hair-washing scene. Reading them, for a moment I am back in the Mara. No wonder this film remains Hollywood’s greatest tribute to Kenya; even 30 years later, it can transport you like nothing else.

Essentials

Caroline Eden travelled as a guest of Abercrombie & Kent (01242 547 760; abercrombiekent.co.uk), which offers a six-night Out of Africa adventure (which can be tailor-made for individual dates and preferences) from £5,695 per person based on two people sharing. The price includes two nights’ full board at Segera Retreat, four nights’ full board at Angama Mara (based on its opening offer) and also includes transfers, internal flights, park fees, and international flights from the UK in economy class.

Out of Africa: The film that made us fall in love with Kenya"Lounging on a picnic blanket high up on Kenya?s Oloololo Escarpment, I felt I had been here before"

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