contact 

links

The Masai Mara Game Reserve is one of the most popular African safari destinations. It’s the northern extension of the equally famous Tanzanian Serengeti National Park and covers an area of 1510 m². The “Mara” is world-renowned for its astonishing amount of wildlife. The “Big Cat Diary” is shot here and the reserve has been named one of the “New Seventh Wonders of the World”. Open rolling grasslands and single trees dominate the landscape, backed by the beautiful Siria escarpment and swampy areas to the west. Cats occur nearly everywhere, with lions being the most visible ones, that can be found in large prides. The males in the Mara have impressive manes due to the open grasslands and very few visitors leave the reserve without having seen the 'king of the animals'. Cheetahs, which are difficult to spot elsewhere in Africa, are also seen regularly on the plains.
 

Elephants, buffaloes, hippos, topis, giraffes and matriarchal clans of hyenas also exist in large numbers. Black rhinos, once nearly hunted to extinction, seem to recover and sightings get more common again. Nevertheless the “Mara’s” ultimate attraction is surely the annual wildebeest migration, that takes place during July or August, when millions of these beasts and thousands of zebras move north from the Serengeti Plains in surch for lusher grass. I haven’t seen the migration, as I visited the Mara in April 2007 during the rainy season, but rangers and people, who witnessed the spectacle, seem to be overwhelmed by the vast herds. I haven’t been to any national park or game reserve with comparable wildlife densities. But the wilderness experience gets heavily disturbed by the enormous number of tourists that frequent the reserve. Sometimes there seem to be as many minibuses as animals and many tend to take off, making new tracks wherever they feel it. In the west of the reserve it's a bit calmer, but even here it feels overrun sometimes.
 

Finally another big 'attraction' of the Mara is a visit to a Maasai village. The Maasai people, for many foreigners the definitive symbol of ‘tribal’ East Africa, live in the area and nearly every tour operator offers ‘cultural’ visits. Here the Maasai offer dances and show their traditional bomas. Although the Maasai culture is undoubtedly a fascinating one, don’t expect a genuine cultural experience! Many visitors complain about high-pressure sales and the feeling of being treated as a cash cow. I really don't recommend!