In the waterhole there is an artificial island with non-edible, sharp grass on it, shaped like the continent of Africa, including Madagascar. The southern tip has been trampled out of shape by buffalos, which, I think, is just as well, as the idea struck me as rather odd and childish. Apparently somebody thought that the greatest the tourist could take home is a photograph of animals roaming around a tiny Africa. I spent the next night at Treetops, currently owned by Block Hotels, which I also had never seen before. The base camp is the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri, and like The Ark, a bus takes people up to the lodge in the afternoon, with a second bus going later, before dark.
Treetops is part of the history of Kenya.
It is not as far into the Aberdare National Park as The Ark, and one of the problems is lots of fences, such that it is difficult to take a photograph from the lodge without having some kind of fence on it. One reason for those fences is an attempt to protect some bush and tree areas near the water hole. Nonetheless a whole lot of elephants visited the water hole that night, and at Treetops the elephants are so close to the lodge terrace that you can almost scratch their heads when you lean over. This is one of the nice points of Treetops. You are very close to the action and can observe and take photographs in a way that is not possible in any other place in Kenya.