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Lake Naivasha Sopa Resort

Set in one hundred and fifty acres of grassland studded with Acacia bushes and trees, the resort is not only home to our resident giraffe, waterbuck, and both Vervet and Colobus monkeys, but it is also a night stop for the hippos when they leave the lake every night to come and trim the grass on our expansive lawns.

Accommodation

Cottages are built in a crescent shape, and each has 4 rooms, 2 on the ground and 2 at the top,  totaling 82 rooms.

• 2 of these rooms are suitable for the physically challenged.
• 6 of the 21 cottages have inter-connecting rooms on the ground floor.

The exterior walls of the cottages have stone walls giving it character and creepers and bougainvilleas add a lot of colors. The same stonework is carried into the rooms and is the exterior bathroom wall. The banister going up the top floor is wrought iron as well and the same creepers and bougainvilleas are entwined around them.
Our double-story guest cottages with their ingeniously designed roofs gently sweep away from one side of the main building to form a crescent that leads towards the lakeshore. While the upstairs guest rooms have a single king-size bed and the downstairs ones have two queen-size beds, both have one thing in common and that is an extraordinary amount of space as well as lavishly appointed bathrooms.

• Ground floor rooms have 2 queen size beds and a sunken living room at the front which opens out onto the beautifully manicured lawns.
• Top floor rooms have 1 king-size bed and in front of it is a balcony that has a beautifully designed wrought iron railing and furniture to match. This faces the lawns as well.

All rooms have large frontal windows; televisions; mini-bars; telephones; electronic safes; tea and coffee making facilities; and spacious, open-air verandas.

Reception

The drive from the property’s main entrance gate to the reception car park takes you through Acacia shrubland where you will often see giraffes or waterbuck. The massive entrance portico is high roofed and oval, and the steps down to the cozy, circular reception area are divided by an attractive water feature.

Lobby & Lounge

This enormous, split-level area is roughly circular with an open to a sky garden at its center, and a wooden paneled 1950’s style bar at its far end. The high ceiling has decorated skylights and supports more chandeliers as well as the chimneys for the ornately worked copper fireplaces, while the fabric and leather upholstered furniture, wooden tables, and a piano curve around the room whose huge picture windows offer sublime views over the surrounding landscapes.

The Grounds

The flat area between the resort’s main buildings and the lakeshore is covered with lush grass that is regularly manicured by hippos when they leave the lake to feed at night, and is bordered on all three sides by mature Acacia trees. To the right of the lounge is a small forest of tall Euphorbia – a type of cactus – whose upper limits are conveniently trimmed by our resident giraffe, and through which leads the access path to our guest cottages. The dining room to the left of the lounge has a shaded patio, and beyond this are the conference halls and the swimming pool. These are all fronted by cultivated gardens which follow through to line the access path at the rear of the guest cottages and, wherever you go on the estate, you will almost always be certain to come across giraffes and waterbuck, solemn Colobus monkeys, and the more mischievous and frivolous Vervet monkeys.

Dining

A section of the circular lounge roof gently curves away to shelter the dining room with its huge chandeliers and a large, centrally located fireplace. The buffet area is located to one side of this in a large annex with a spectacular, red granite-topped live cooking area, and the excellent food ranges between Continental, Swahili (Kenya Coast), and Mediterranean cuisines, often with a deliciously subtle fusion of all three disciplines. These are accompanied by a selection of home-baked bread and garden fresh fruits and vegetables.
The dining room also has a large, outdoor patio with umbrella-shaded tables for those who wish to enjoy an open-air meal during the day, or during our often warm and balmy evenings.

Swimming Pool

The swimming pool is always a favorite spot for kids because of its open-sided snack restaurant which fills them up with pizzas, burgers, hot dogs, toasted sandwiches, and, of course, French fries. However we also have an a la carte menu here, and we use this area for private dinner parties.

Bars

The lounge area in the main public area building is split into upper and lower levels and the main bar is located between these. With its entire dark timber panel finish, cozy ambiance, romantically subtle concealed lighting, and high, upholstered bar stools, it would have once been the perfect setting for a scene from one of Dirk Bogarde’s movies.
By way of total contrast, the pool bar is located in the roofed but open-sided area between the swimming pool and the tennis court.

Activities at Lake Naivasha Sopa Resort

• Swimming
• Nature Walk
• Bird Walk
• Bush Breakfast
• Champagne Bush Breakfast
• Bush Lunch
• Barbeque Lunch – Outdoor

FACILITIES

Lake Naivasha

Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in the Kenya section of Africa’s Great Rift Valley and is located northwest of Nairobi with the town of Naivasha on its northeastern shore. At 1,890 meters (6,200 ft) above sea level, the lake is at the highest point in the Kenyan rift and is set in a complex geological combination of volcanic rocks and sedimentary deposits from a much larger Pleistocene era lake. Because the outlet for this ancient lake, now called Njorwa Gorge, is today much higher than the lake, the original Lake Naivasha must have indeed been a truly vast expanse of water. The gorge now forms the entrance to the Hell’s Gate National Park which, for obvious reasons, today contains some spectacular examples of water and weather-worn rock formations as well as an abundance of flora and fauna to include some extremely rare, resident breeding pairs of Lammergeyers, otherwise known as Bearded vultures.
Apart from transient streams, Lake Naivasha is fed by the perennial Malewa and Gilgil rivers and, most unusually, it now has no visible outlet. However, it must be assumed that such a large body of water has to have an underground outflow through a volcanic fissure or similar somewhere beneath the expanse of its lake bed, and it has been suggested that the water emerges through the fresh but hot water springs at Lake Magadi, an otherwise brackish and pinkish colored soda lake 120kms to the south.
Because this is a volcanic area, as witnessed by Mount Longonot, an extinct nearby volcano to the southeast, and ancient fumaroles – including the tiny but spectacular Crater Lake – to the west, Kenya is blessed with the presence of the Olkarria Geothermal electrical generating complex – high in the hills just to the south – which feeds massive amounts of much-needed power into the national grid.
Since the lake’s underground outflow might perhaps be limited in size, the lake has a surface area of between 140 and 180 km² depending on the rainfall although, and in years gone by, it has been known to either dry up altogether or to expand exponentially during the somewhat cyclic curse of the El Nino weather system which creates flood chaos with its multiple or lengthy torrential rainstorms. It has an average depth of 6 meters (20 ft), and its deepest point of 30 meters (100 feet) is off Crescent Island which is a wildlife conservation area.
Lake Naivasha is home to a wide variety of wildlife including a sizeable population of hippos which usually invade our property during their nightly forays for food. Being a freshwater lake, it also has a healthy fish population to include Black bass, Tilapia, and Crayfish which attract a variety of fish-eating birds such as Long-tailed and Great Cormorants, along with Fish Eagles, Pelicans, and various types of Kingfishers.
Naivasha is also a good place to see the Grey-backed fiscal. This bird replaces the Long-tailed Fiscal in areas with higher rainfall. Also to be seen in the area is the Black-lored Babbler. The Naivasha race tends to show pale tipped feathers on their heads which gives their appearance a somewhat frosty or haloed effect, and it is believed that this variation may be the result of hybridization with Northern Pied Babblers at some point in the past.
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• Lake Naivasha Country Club
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