As it turned out during the following years, we got regular visitors from the world of journalism and entertainment who were especially interested in this part of Kenya, the Samburu and their culture. One of those visitors was Harry Hook, a Kenyan born but now UK based film producer and photographer. Harry had previously been responsible for several film productions including the 1987 “Kitchen Toto” film and the 1990 production of “Lord of the Flies”. (Both productions are available on Youtube.) This time Harry had come to Samburu for his work on a documentary called “Photographing Africa”. The documentary tried to demonstrate how Africa had changed within a time-span between 20-30 years, while especially focusing on changes between rural and urban lives.  During his stay with us in Samburu, Harry tried to find some women from rural households that he had portrayed some 30 years back, in order to find out how their lives had become. Finding these women was quite a struggle, but he at least partly succeeded. This fascinating documentary can still be viewed here.

Then later,  Ngari Hill hosted a production/film crew from Walt Disney for about one week. The crew made daily flights by helicopter from our lodge location to various parts in the Suguta Valley, one of the worlds most isolated desert regions with incredible landscape features. The film crew made numerous landscape shots that later appeared in the Lion King movie, the much-anticipated photorealistic remake of Disney’s 1994 production. This inspired Ngari Hill to start guided hikes into parts of the Suguta Valley from its sister location in Poro. These hikes  provided an opportunity to witness several layers of different ecosystems – from a highland position into a low lying desert region – and which in turn provided an insight how life in this unique part of the world exists.