Maasai Mara

About Maasai Mara

The Maasai Mara is the Kenyan end of the Serengeti ecosystem, a sweep of red-oat grass rolling west to the Oloololo Escarpment and cut by the Mara and Talek rivers. The national reserve sits at its heart, ringed by private conservancies leased from Maasai landowners, where vehicle numbers are capped and guides can drive off-road, walk with you and go out after dark.

Lions are the headline, but cheetahs hunt the open plains by daylight and leopards drape themselves along the riverine trees. Hippos grunt in every bend of the river and topi stand sentry on termite mounds. From about July to October the migration pours in from Tanzania, and the herds bunch on the banks of the Mara River before plunging across past waiting crocodiles. Dawn balloon flights drift over it all, and a visit to a Maasai homestead shows you the cattle culture behind the landscape.

It is a short flight from Wilson Airport or a five-to-six-hour drive from Nairobi. July to October brings the crossings and the crowds; January and February are dry and quieter, with resident predators and plenty of plains game. Stop at Lake Naivasha or Lake Nakuru on the way in, cross into the northern Serengeti for more of the herds, or fly on to Rwanda or Uganda for gorillas.