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Photo credit: Bryce Evans, Unsplash
Just southeast of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, a picturesque safari lodge overlooks the green hills of East Africa. This is Cottar’s Safari Service. Nearly a century ago, Charles Cottar, an Oklahoman adventurer, was so moved by Teddy Roosevelt’s tales of safari that he voyaged to Africa and decided to stay. He moved his family to the continent and quickly became one of the top professional hunters and safari guides in Africa.
Charles’ grandson Calvin has been coming to the same stretch of the Maasai Mara plain since his childhood. In 1998, Calvin and his wife Louise built Cottar’s 1920s Safari Camp as a private conservancy, innovatively protecting the region’s natural biodiversity while simultaneously offering guests contact with the local Maasai culture. Each morning at Cottar’s Safari begins with a warm cup of coffee near the fireplace, followed by photographic game drives across the Maasai Mara and into the Serengeti plains. For Calvin, Cottar’s is a place to capture the spirit of the unspoiled African landscape while remembering that “the safari is the journey to the destination.”