I love to walk and here I am in a beautiful, open grass land with miles and miles of red dirt road stretching before me. It looks perfectly peaceful, beckoning even.

“Can’t I just walk the kilometer from Ngiri House to Lewa Headquarters?” I ask Lydia, our server, at breakfast,

She looks puzzled, like I asked a question she didn’t understand. “Walk?”

“Yes,” I said. “It isn’t very very far and I know the way.”

Now Lydia looks worried. “No, no, no,” she says emphatically, “you must not walk. It is too dangerous for you.”

Getting exercise in this place — or in any African wildlife reserve for that matter — is a real challenge. The locals, like Lydia, are allowed to walk along short, well populated routes from the government road to Headquarters and Ngiri House. The Rangers, armed with rifles and heavy sticks roam where they please. Everyone else rides in a four wheel drive vehicle. Period. The only way you are allowed to walk the road is if you have a vehicle with an armed Ranger driving directly behind you. The only way to take a hike through the bush is with an armed Ranger by your side. They take predators seriously here.

For good reason.