4 Day Masai Mara And Lake Nakuru Safari

Our driver guide collects you in Nairobi and we head northwest, climbing the escarpment out of the city with the classic viewpoint over the Rift Valley on the way down the other side. It is roughly 160 kilometres and three hours to the park gate. Nakuru covers about 188 square kilometres around a shallow alkaline lake and forms part of the UNESCO listed Kenya Lake System of the Great Rift Valley. We take you in for an afternoon game drive in the southern sector, which is the best rhino country: southern white rhino graze in the open in family groups, largely indifferent to vehicles, while eastern black rhino browse in thicker cover and are harder to find. Rothschild’s giraffe work the acacia belt on the eastern shore, recognisable by the pale unmarked lower legs that look like white stockings, and moved here from western Kenya when their home range was being converted to farmland.

An early game drive before we leave, taking in Baboon Cliff on the western escarpment for the view over the whole lake and out across the valley floor, and working the acacia woodland where lion sometimes rest up in the trees. Then southwest through Njoro and Narok, roughly four to five hours to the Mara. One honest note on the way: Nakuru was once famous for a million flamingos, and rising water across the Rift lakes has diluted the alkalinity, thinned the algae they feed on and pushed most of them to other lakes. Some are usually present and numbers vary; treat them as a bonus rather than the reason for coming. We reach the Mara in the afternoon for a first game drive on the way to your camp. Around 2,400 elephants live across the greater ecosystem, alongside buffalo, giraffe, topi, eland and hippo. The word Mara means spotted in Maa, a reference to the scattered acacia and cloud shadow dotting the plains.

Out at first light with a picnic lunch, because the Mara rewards a full day rather than two short drives. The reserve covers about 1,510 square kilometres of rolling grassland, and 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, and leopard work the riverine forest along the Mara and Talek rivers. From July to October the herds are here, around 1.5 million wildebeest with several hundred thousand zebra, and the Mara River crossings are what everybody comes for. Nobody can predict a crossing; herds pile up on the banks for hours and then simply walk away, and a guide can only position you and wait.

A last drive at dawn, which is when the cats are still moving and the light across the grass is at its best. If you have not yet found a leopard or the herds have shifted overnight, this is the morning that can change the trip, so we go out early and stay out. Afterwards, back to camp for breakfast and then the road east through Narok to Nairobi, roughly five to six hours with the escarpment climb at the end. We can stop at Narok town, the largest Maasai town and the gateway to the reserve, which has a small museum covering Maasai history and customs and makes a reasonable stop to break the drive. If you would rather not spend the day driving, we can put you on a scheduled flight from one of the Mara airstrips to Wilson Airport instead, roughly forty five minutes, which turns your last day into a morning.