Maasai Mara
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The most visited of Kenya’s National Reserves, the Maasai Mara lies adjacent to Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park in the south west corner of Kenya. It covers over 1500 sq km and is 1500 to 2000 metres above sea level. It has a high rainfall due to the altitude and its proximity to Lake Victoria. The Mara River runs from north to south through the park. The landscape is mainly gently rolling grassland and is home to the highest concentration of wildlife of any Kenyan reserve.
In particular, the Mara is home to the spectacular annual migration of thousands of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle which arrive in the Maasai Mara, from the Serengeti in neighbouring Tanzania, in July and August and return south to the Serengeti around October when the grass is becoming sparse in the Maasai Mara.
It is also home to the long-running BBC TV series 'Big Cat Diary', although you should not necessarily expect to encounter the sort of scenes that you have seen on screen.
Wildlife Highlights:
The reserve teems with herbivores – around 2,500,000 – including wildebeest, Thompsons and Grants gazelle, impala, topi, hartebeest, eland, dik dik, klipspringer, steenbok and roan antelope.
Outside the antelope and gazelles the list is completed by elephant, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and warthog.
Then there are lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, wild dog, jackal and bat eared fox.
Finally, in the Mara River, there are hippos and crocodiles.
Getting to the Maasai Mara:
Most visitors fly in to the Maasai Mara, arriving at one or other of its three airstrips – Keekorok, Olkiombo or Musiara. There are daily scheduled flights from Nairobi, and the coast, in addition to private charters.
By road the point of access is Narok, a three hour drive from Nairobi, and there are regular buses and matatus to Narok from Nairobi and other destinations.
The park itself has well established internal roads and tracks, although accessing areas outside the reserve is not particularly easy.
