A familiar name to many of us, the Maasai Mara is likely to have been featured while watching Attenborough or Big Cat Week documentaries, with lion, cheetah and hyena hunting wildebeest and gazelle within its yellowed savannah landscape.
Between June and October, the Mara ecosystem plays host to the annual migration of over a million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle as they roam from the Serengeti in Tanzania northwards into Kenya and over the Mara River. Estimates of numbers making the migration have been as high as 1.5 million wildebeest, 400,000 zebra, 12,000 eland and 300,000 Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles in one year.
The Maasai Mara National Reserve and Mara Conservancy border Tanzania, with a number of private conservancies bordering the former to the north east thereby extending the area of land under protection. There are countless camp and lodge options in the Mara. Visitor numbers are much lower in the private conservancies than the main park, which can greatly enhance the quality of your safari experience.