8 Day Masai Mara And Rwanda Gorillas Fly-In Safari

Our driver guide meets your flight at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and takes you to your hotel. Nairobi sits at around 1,700 metres, so the evenings are cool and the first night is a good one to sleep off a long haul. If you land in the morning we can fill the afternoon usefully. The David Sheldrick elephant orphanage opens for a single hour each day and needs booking ahead. The Giraffe Centre next door lets you feed Rothschild’s giraffe from a raised platform. The Karen Blixen Museum sits in the former farmhouse at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Nairobi National Park, the only national park inside a capital city, is on the doorstep and holds black rhino. Our guide will run through the week over dinner, confirm your flight times and check what you have packed for the gorilla trek at the end, particularly boots, gaiters and a waterproof.

A short transfer to Wilson Airport for the scheduled flight to the Mara, roughly forty five minutes against six to seven hours by road, and the flight itself gives a good look at the Rift Valley on the way. Your camp meets the plane at the airstrip and you are on a game drive by early afternoon rather than arriving worn out at dusk. The reserve covers about 1,510 square kilometres of rolling grassland and is managed by Narok County, which is why it is technically a national reserve rather than a national park. The word Mara means spotted in Maa, a reference to the scattered acacia and cloud shadow dotting the plains. Around 2,400 elephants live across the greater ecosystem alongside buffalo, giraffe, topi, eland and hippo. Black rhino exist but are scarce and heavily protected, so the Big Five is achievable rather than routine. Dinner at camp with tomorrow planned around recent sightings.

Out at first light with a picnic lunch, because the Mara rewards a full day rather than two short drives. Its real strength is the resident predator population, present in every month regardless of the migration. Something in the order of 850 lions live across the greater Mara, and the open country makes them far easier to find than in wooded parks. Cheetah do well on these plains and are seen more reliably here than almost anywhere in East Africa, while leopard work the riverine forest along the Mara and Talek rivers. Where possible we work the Mara Triangle in the west, a wedge of around 510 square kilometres between the river and the Oloololo Escarpment, managed separately, better run and considerably quieter than the eastern reserve. We take a picnic lunch out rather than returning to camp in the middle of the day, which keeps you in the field when the light softens again.

The day that makes a Mara stay worth booking properly. Two full days means you can wait: at a river bank in crossing season, at a kill, or with a cheetah that looks like it might hunt. From July to October the herds are here, around 1.5 million wildebeest with several hundred thousand zebra and Thomson’s gazelle, and the Mara River crossings are what everybody comes for. Nobody can predict one; herds pile up on the banks for hours and then simply walk away, and a guide can only position you and wait. Outside those months the resident cats are the draw and the reserve is far quieter. A hot air balloon flight is worth arranging in advance for one of these mornings, launching before dawn and finishing with a bush breakfast cooked in the open. Over 470 bird species have been recorded across the ecosystem, with six vulture species and a strong raptor list worth stopping for.

A dawn game drive first, then back to camp for breakfast before the transfer to the airstrip. The scheduled flight to Wilson Airport takes about forty five minutes, and we move you across Nairobi to Jomo Kenyatta for the onward flight to Kigali, which runs a little over an hour. You land in Rwanda in the afternoon. The change is immediate, from open Kenyan grassland to a small hilly country of terraced ridges and clean streets. We take you to the Kigali Genocide Memorial at Gisozi, resting place of more than 250,000 victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, which gives you the context for the conservation work you will see tomorrow. Allow three hours, and expect the visit to stay with you for the rest of the evening; nobody should go from Gisozi straight into a market. Overnight in the capital. Our guide will talk you through what to expect before you set out.

North out of the capital, the road climbing through hills terraced to the ridgeline with beans, potatoes and pyrethrum, past markets and bicycle taxis stacked with bananas. After two to two and a half hours the Virunga chain appears ahead, five volcanoes with cloud usually sitting on the shoulders of Sabyinyo and Muhabura. In the afternoon we visit the Gorilla Guardians village near Kinigi, founded by a former warden of Volcanoes National Park who wanted paid work for people who had been poaching inside it. You get Intore dance and drumming, traditional medicine, archery and banana beer, and more usefully the conversation about what poaching paid and what tourism replaced it with. Check in near Kinigi, close to park headquarters. Dinner early, boots by the door, and bag packed tonight rather than in the dark tomorrow morning, when you will be leaving before five. Timings shift a little with the season, and we adjust on the day rather than sticking to a schedule.

You leave in the dark. Kinigi is cold at six, mist on the peaks, dancers performing while everyone assembles and coffee going round. Trackers went out at first light and are already sitting with the families, radioing positions back. The briefing runs at seven. Rangers split you into groups of eight trekkers per gorilla family and go through the rules: seven metres back, no flash, mask on during the hour, nobody treks with a cold. Then out through farmland to the stone boundary wall and into bamboo, nettles and volcanic soil that holds water for days. Volcanoes National Park was gazetted in 1925 and is the oldest national park in Africa, and the massif holds more than half the world’s mountain gorillas. When you reach the family you get one hour, and it goes faster than anyone expects. Hire a porter at the trailhead; it is the best decision most trekkers make. The afternoon is yours at the lodge.

Nothing early this morning. After breakfast we can take you to the Musanze caves, a lava tube system running a couple of kilometres beneath the town, formed by the same volcanic activity that built the Virungas, with lamps taking you past bat colonies and collapsed roof openings that throw light into the tunnels. The Twin Lakes at Burera and Ruhondo are the gentler alternative, an easy boat trip with the volcanoes standing behind the water. Then the drive south to Kigali, two to two and a half hours, arriving early afternoon. If your flight is in the evening we finish at Kimironko market for agaseke peace baskets and imigongo, or at the Inema Arts Centre, founded by two self taught painter brothers and now the best known gallery in the region, where resident artists work on site. Drop off at Kigali International Airport. Take binoculars; there is more to see than the headline animals.