The Masai Mara National Reserve

The Masai Mara is Kenya’s finest wildlife sanctuary and is widely considered to be Africa’s greatest wildlife reserve. Immortalized in books and films such as Out of Africa everything about this national reserve is outstanding.The Masai Mara area has seen more than its fair share of controversy. The reserve originally created in the 1960’s was set aside as a game reserve. This soon resulted in a conflict with the Maasai, a nomadic Kenya tribe, that have maintained their cultural way of life, because of the huge displacement of their villages and livestock. The Mara was originally one of the grazing areas for Maasai livestock and manyatta. A manyatta is a livestock camp that Maasai boys build after circumcision and spend a few years in to complete their transition to manhood. The move by the colonial government (Britain) to set aside this land reduced and destroyed the Maasai concepts of communal land.

Today the Maasai with their livestock can be found within the dispersal area which is an area of land that extends north and east of the Masai Mara Reserve this area too has it’s fair share of wildlife and today, just as they have for centuries they live in close association with the wildlife has resulting in an almost symbiotic relationship where wildlife and people live in peace with one another.

The game reserve has an abundunt wildlife population and the visitor is not likely to be disappoint no matter what time of the year they actually visit the park. The mara with it’s grassland vegetation and scattered trees, typical of savannah grassland make it so easy for visitors to see the animals. For bird lovers there are lots of bird species found here, these include birds that migrate during winter to warmer areas with well over 450 species having been recorded, making it one of the best places to see birds in Africa. Among these birds there are about 57 species of birds of prey. Visitors to the mara will also find that the climate is also quite gentle surprisingly. Rarely does it ever get too hot and well spread rainfall year round and even when it rains, Rain in the mara when it falls always tends to fall, in the late afternoon or night.

Off course just like many parts of Africa there are rain seasons that make wildlife viewing not so pleasant. The sensation between July and October, when the great mara wildebeest migration occurs is unparalleled.The maasai mara Reserve lies about 270 km from Nairobi and takes about 5 hours to get there by road. Should a traveler prefer to take their safari by air, there are several companies that offer scheduled flights, twice daily from Wilson Airport Nairobi, with flights taking about 40 - 45 minutes.The first sight of the masai mara’s natural wonderland is breathtaking. Here the great herds of shuffling elephants browse among the rich tree-studded grasslands with an occasional sighting of a solitary and ill-tempered rhino. Thomson’s and Grant’s gazelle, topi and eland and many more species of plains’ game offer a rich choice of food for the dominant predators(if they can catch them); lion, leopard and cheetah which hunt in this pristine wilderness can easily be seen, although leopards tend to be harder to spot.

In the Mara river, hippos will occasionally submerge at the approach of a vehicle only to surface seconds later to snort and grumble their displeasure. Seemingly drowsy crocodile sunbathe on the river banks, mouth agape, waiting with subtle cunning for prey at which to strike with lightning swiftness. Out of the water these crocodiles are harmless.
This richness of wildlife, this profusion of winged beauty and the untouched fragility of the landscape, are all subordinate to the Masai Mara’s foremost attraction, the wildebeest migration. Each year, far south in the great vastness of the Serengeti, the wildebeest raise their dignified but quaint heads, sniff the air and, as if by one accord, start the long trek to the Kenya border and the Masai Mara. After exhausting the grazing in Tanzania’s northern Serengeti a large number of wildebeest and zebra enter the Masai Mara.

Around the end of June drawn by the sweet grass raised by the long rains of April and May. It is estimated that more than half a million wildebeest enter the Mara and are joined by another 100,000 from the Loita Hills east of the Mara the experience of driving in the midst of these great herds is simply unimaginable. Whilst the eyes feast on the spectacle the air carries the smells, the dust and the sounds of hundreds of thousands of animals.There is nowhere else on earth to compare with this mara wildlife marvel. But the trek is costly. The herds draw ravening packs of predators, especially hyenas and lions, and thousands of the lame, laggard and sick never complete the cycle. It’s survival for the fittest and more wildebeest die, by drowning or by the teeth of the cunning crocodile, whilst trying to cross the swirling muddy waters of the Mara and Talek rivers. Once the Mara’s grass has been devoured and when fresh rain in Tanzania has brought forth a new flush there, the herds turn south, heading hundreds of kilometres back to Serengeti and the Ngorongoro plains. There the young are dropped in time to grow sufficiently strong to undertake the long march north six months later.

Although July, August and September are the months when the Mara plains are filled with migrating wildebeest and zebra, there is much resident wildlife year round. Apart from the better known species there are numerous opportunities to add some of the rare and less frequently seen animals to the visitor’s checklist. In the south western sector you may be lucky enough to see roan antelope, a handsome creature regrettably rare countrywide. Bat-eared foxes peer from their burrows and there are thousands of topi, an antelope not found in other major parks except Tsavo. The combination of a gentle climate, scenic splendor and untold numbers of wildlife makes the Masai Mara Kenya’s most popular inland safari destination.