Nestled in a giant bowl that has the Mau, Eburru and the Aberdares circling the grass plains of Mbweha, it’s the nightlife that springs into action in this patch of wilderness in between the lakes of Elmenteita and Nakuru in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

“Let’s do the A to Z of all the nightlife,” I say to Saul Bett, the driver-guide at Mbweha. First on my list of nocturnals is the aardvark, only found in sub-Saharan Africa, a strange-looking barrel-shaped animal with a long snout and sticky tongue. The two times I’ve been at Mbweha, I’ve seen this termite-eater wandering around the plains in search of its favourite food.

Their eyes sparkle in the dark when the light shines on the gazelles and elands. The air is cool, the plains silent. It is only the night birds that call out. Suddenly, a black and white striped badger-like animal is caught in the light scuttling through the grass, its eyes reflecting the light from the spotlight. It’s a zorilla, also called the African polecat. Again, it carries the tag "only found in Africa, that is south of the Sahara".

In my life of six decades, this is only the second time I’m seeing a zorilla. The other time was up in the vales of the Aberdares. The zorilla is also called the African skunk because of the horrible smell it lets out from its rear end when it’s threatened. Most animals just ignore it at night, allowing the vicious little carnivorous animal to forage for snakes, eggs, birds and whatever else before it burrows underground, like the aardvark, to sleep the day away.

The zorilla vanishes and more eyes stare at us through the darkness. A family of spotted hyenas is on the prowl. Once thought to be scavengers, spotted hyenas are mostly hunters and with the most powerful jaw of all carnivores, think nothing of crunching through bones.

Night sky

Looking skyward, the Milky Way dazzles and a shooting star burns its way into earth’s space. Planet Jupiter stays stoic.

Suddenly, the African spring hare bounds across on its hind legs, like a miniature kangaroo. The East African spring hare has, since 1997, been separated from the South African one based on genetic differences. It is found in central and southern Kenya and Tanzania.

While the African spring hares bound about, the ordinary hare with its long ears stops, runs, and stops again looking for roots and shoots to eat while keeping away from large predators like lions and leopards.

The smaller animals that we tick off our list are the bat-eared fox that uses its large ears to zero in on its prey, mostly insects, and the black-backed jackal.

These are only found in East and southern Africa. The black-backed jackal has been around for three million years, according to fossils found in Kenya.

These amazing creatures of the night give a rare glimpse of the animal world that is continually threatened by the human need for space. Safe spaces like Mbewha in Soysambu conservancy are vital for their existence, as is Soysambu’s open sky for Africa’s big eagles and the millions of migrant birds that fly over it from Europe and Asia, in search of warmer climes and food to fatten up before they return to the north and east to rear the next generation.

When the sun rises, breakfast is served as a rare Rothschild giraffe watches us. The morning game drive reveals a troop of the increasingly rare colobus monkeys waking up in the trees, and two openings to the aardvarks’ burrows with the paw-prints clearly visible on freshly scooped earth.

Mbweha, the camp

Named in Kiswahili after the jackal, it’s a fun place to be at with an al-fresco bathtub by the quaint old-styled cottages capped with a thatched and a veranda boasting a day-time bed. It’s so private that each cottage has a bamboo fence on the spacious lawn. You can swim, cycle and hike with a guide. Game drives into Soysambu conservancy and Lake Nakuru National Park are easy to do.

Explore new routes

Driving in from Nandi Hills, the recently tarmacked winding road between Muhoroni in the sugar-belt and the tea fields of Kericho, is scenic with little traffic.

From Mbweha take the back road skirting Eburru the dormant volcano to Nairobi. You get great views of Soysambu, the lava fields and the many volcanic hills. Or continue to Mau Narok and into the Mara from Sekanani gate.