Safari at the Mara

The masai mara national park is the venue of the annual Great Migration of wildebeest and other grazing herbivores across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. it is regarded as one of the greatest spectacles in the natural world. About 200 000 zebra and 500 000 Thomson’s gazelle …and one-and-a-half million wildebeest partake to this journey.

Masai Mara National Reserve located in south west Kenya is a vast scenic expanse of gently rolling African savannah plains measuring 1510 square kilometers in area and bordering the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the south. Masai Mara is a unique wildlife conservation haven, famous for its spectacular natural diversity of wildlife and happens to be a premier Kenya Safari location in East Africa, offering visitors many reasons to visit this animal paradise. Large numbers of Lions, Cheetah, Elephant, Rhino, African Buffalo, Wildebeest, Giraffe, Zebra and many more animals are found in the park in their natural habitat, unconfined and free to roam the vast wilderness stretching for miles on end.

t is no surprise then that tourists from the world over travel here not least because the reserve has been voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Regarding the origin of the name, the word ‘Masai’ comes from the Maasai tribe, nomadic inhabitants of the area and the word ‘Mara’ is their word for ‘spotted’, referring to the ubiquitous flat topped acacia trees, shrubs and bushes that dot the landscape across most of the reserve.

Masai Mara now also comprises a number of conservancies and group ranches bordering the main reserve and is home to some of the most diverse species of African wildlife and is also the site of the annual Wildebeest migration, simply called the ‘Great Migration’. Masai Mara National Park is famous for this migration, when large herds of a million plus wildebeest, zebra and other animals including the Big Cats migrate northwards into the Mara from Serengeti National Park. Their annual trek takes place typically between July to end of August and involves dangerous crossings through crocodile-infested rivers. The ‘Mara’, as Masai Mara is also known, is among the best wildlife reserves not just in Kenya but also in Africa

Safari at the Mara