Into the Wild

Drs Vicki Belo and Hayden Kho, together with daughter Scarlet Snow, ushered in the new year amid Kenya’s magnificent wildlife

- Maritess Garcia Reyes

If tomorrow we can go back, we will go,” says Dr Hayden Kho, husband of Dr Vicki Belo and father of social media darling Scarlet Snow, reminiscing how Kenya gave them a breath of fresh air from the challenges and restrictions of the pandemic. “We were stuck here in the Philippines for a long time, so we just wanted to escape.” Vicki adds, “We always go somewhere every Christmas and I thought this year, we wouldn’t be able to do it because of Covid. You can’t help those little voices in your head telling you ‘you shouldn’t go’. [But] I can’t put my life on hold for the rest of I don’t know how long.”

The couple, who have embarked on several African safaris in the past, chose Kenya this time for its diverse wildlife. “Scarlet loves animals,” says Hayden. Before the pandemic, Kenya was teeming with tourists all year round, but this changed in 2020. “Kenya has always been the goal for me, but I’ve never gone because it’s always so crowded. Kenya has always been my dream,” Vicki shares.

It was early December when she called her friend, Binky Dizon, owner of A2A Safaris, to check the viability of going to this African destination. “Binky said it’s the best time to go as nobody’s going,” Vicki narrates. And that was it. The next thing Vicki and Hayden knew, they were already aboard a flight to Dubai the day after Christmas, where they would take a connecting flight to Nairobi and a chartered flight to their first destination: Masai Mara.