Our Staff at Work

Some photos of our people at work on the site.

Rock being thrown over the sub-terrain walls for foundantions of the inner walls.

Volcanic rock being broken in preparation for shaping for building. The rock is also shaped with hammers, albeit small ones.

Volcanic rock being carried from where it's been delivered on the site, to the place where required by the masons.

Bar & Recreation Walls

After reception walls were done we started with the bar and recreation area with their shared toilet facilities (restaurant & lounge have their own as well). These buildings have large windows and around the front will have many wooden full-length louvred doors opening to a 2m wide wooden deck and the forest beyond. Part of the view from the bar and restaurant will include the large communal outdoor campfire area.

The bar/lounge lobby entrance from reception on the near right with 2 of the large windows of the bar visible to the centre.

The lobby between the bar and lounge seen here from the lounge in the foreground. The bar is beyond the the lobby.

View across the floor of the bar towards the recreation area. The wall on the left will form the back of the half-moon bar. From centre to the doors (visible in the right of the shot) is an 8m radius - this building will also have the highest roof with the centre post in excess of 12m high.

The location for the bar centre post visible in the foreground. Further across, the opening where full-length louvred 'shutter doors' will open to a 2m wooden deck.

Walls Start going Up!

The first walls started going up on 3 June - a long awaited and exciting day. The excitement spread through all our employees as well and our top masons got the honour of starting the walls of reception. As you'll see in the photos below, the walls of reception is now complete as well as window and door lintels with only the concrete ring-beam to go.

The laying of the first volcanic rock "bricks" - this particular spot being where the little shop would be located.

Walls in progress - looking toward the half-moon where the reception counter will be located.

View of the completed walls from the main parking area - the main entrance would be up the stairs in the foreground.

Closer view of the completed reception walls, over the stairs that will make out part of the main entrance.

Overland Sites

Photos of the main overland campsites and the cooking areas which we've paved with the locally made red bricks.

Looking northwards up the the main campsite. A cooking area for one group visible in the right of the photo.

The southern-most end of the main campsite with the cooking area for one group here. Parking for the southern 2 sites partially visible in the background.

4x4 Campsites - Update

Below are photos of 3 of the sites - taken about a month ago.

The first 4x4 site we planted grass at. The cooking/fireplace incorporated into the rock in the foreground.

The cooking area of the western-most site with steps leading up to the eating area. Campsite is further up to the left.

Site on the eastern side with a 2-level cooking and eating area. The bathrooms are diagonally off to the left.

Bar, Lounge & Restaurant

During May the concrete slabs for the bar, lounge and restaurant were completed. In order to deal with the varying levels between sections and buildings as well as aesthetic purposes, the concrete was poured 'within' a perimeter of small shaped volcanic rocks. This then also hides the level of concrete from view when the buildings are seen from the outside as the walls will be erected inside but against the edge of this little rock perimeter.


The photos below show clearly how big the difference in levels between sections and buildings really is.

From foreground to back: edge of bar, lobby from reception, lounge, restaurant to far left and bathrooms serving restaurant and lounge to the far right.
Bar and recreation area (far left) - looking across to where the campfire area will be

April 2008

April was a bit all over the shop for me with a week in Kenya meeting people including somebody from a group lodges that have offered to assist in training our staff at one or more of their lodges in the Masaai Mara. This program would also involve them helping out with their trained staff assisting and shadowing our staff during the first couple of months Ikoro Tented Camp is open. A massive boost thus for our proposed training program for our staff.

I had also been in London for Sarah's birthday party with the obligatory champagne of course which also coincided with a house move in London. Speaking of which, please make sure if you have any correspondence for our London address, to confirm you have the correct address.

Back in Musanze, Andy and I went to see how the stone-cutting machine operation was going that we thought would provide cut volcanic rock for building. This has since fallen by the wayside and all our building is now with hand-shaped rock from quarry in an area known as Gahunga.

End of April saw Sarah and I hosting our first dinner for guests in the new covered entertainment area with about 15 people present. After some snacks and drinks, a 3 course dinner followed around a lovely big fire. Definitely not the last time we'll be doing this - if you're in the area, give me a shout and I'll set-up a dinner/bbq for the late afternoon or evening.

Trip to South Africa (March 2008)

The visit to South Africa was very productive and included a visit to the company whom we intend buying the roofing for the public areas from. It was decided that we would use a synthetic thatch which serve us much better as far as durability and transport costs go. Furthermore, this would also mean we could harvest rainwater from these roofs. The synthetic thatch is well manufactured with custom-made colours and looks like the natural thatch. This also bring down the total weight and stress on the overall roof structure as this product is all in all with waterproffing material and backing, max an inch thick. 'Installation' will also be a fraction of the time-frame it would take to use natural thatching on the 2,000sq.m roofs.

I also went to get some examples of toiletries for our safari tents and both Sarah and I agree with the quality that we'll be able to provide quality in even this to our guests. There was also a visit to a firm in Cape Town which it seems we'll be sourcing the majority of our linen from who is also a large supplier to the hotel and hospitality industry in SA.

Kitchen design was also on the agenda and I had a very informative and productive meeting with a specialist company in Cape Town.

'New' House in Musanze

December 2008 we moved house in Musanze. A lovely property we're renting at the moment but decided it needed some work to on the gardens and outside - for a start anyway. A little bit further from centre of town but generally still a reasonably central location and 1.5km from the site. The one side of the property was previously all dedicated to a vegetable garden which, by the time we moved in, was totally overgrown.

The idea was to convert part of this to a lawn and garden adjoining the existing front garden and formalising a section into a vegetable garden towards the back of the property. I also designed an outdoor bbq area with a banana fibre roof which would also prove to be a worthwhile 'test drive' for similar structures at Ikoro for the campsites etc.

The photos here are of the work we'd done to date and the way it looks at the moment.

Part of the rock garden at dusk I built with some of our guys using large volcanic rocks. Some rocks took 4 of us to carry.

A view of the vegetable garden with rock pathways between the beds.

View across part of the back lawn of the covered bbq and entertainment area

Updates

The next couple of days I'll be updating the blog with photos of the project and snippets of news since the last update. Unfortunately, I only have photos after March as my laptop was stolen during a visit to South Africa which contained about 5,000 photos including ones of the project - a dear lesson and reality check in backing up the data and photos to external media.

Anyway, as you'll see from the posts after this, there has been huge progress in all aspects of the project. Our number of employees has also swollen and now stands at around 260 people with 200 working on the site itself and another approx. 60 on a stone quarry we purchased for the rock to be shapped for the building.

Enjoy the journey with us through the review of the last few months.