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Maasai Mara: Africa's Preeminent Wildlife HabitatThe Maasai Mara also referred to as "Masai Mara" or simply "The Mara" is, undisputedly, the most gratifying of all Kenya's wildlife parks and reserves. Not only does it sustain upwards of 2 million heads of game, it boasts the largest-bodied and by far the continent's highest concentration of lions (which number in the thousands) and other big cats. Therefore, no wildlife safari to Kenya would be complete without a visit to the Mara which has been immortalized in the highly acclaimed motion picture, Out of Africa.
Part of a huge ecosystem that stretches into the Tanzanian Serengeti, the Mara's topography is characterized by gently rolling plains dotted with acacia shrubs and a swathe of thick tropical forest along the banks of the meandering Mara and Talek rivers. All year round, herds of zebras, gazelles, giraffes and other animals you didn't even know existed such as the duiker, kudu, dik-dik, klipspringer, and oribi as well as their predators the lions, cheetahs and hyenas can be seen on the plains.
Hippos and crocodiles can be spotted basking on the sun-baked river banks while the trees in the national reserve are havens for birds, monkeys and leopards.
Ironically though, the Mara's fame is attributable, not to any of the megafauna that sit at the apex of the animal kingdom hierarchy but to the lesser wildebeest which is neither brown nor black and is said to be an antelope with the head of an ox, the mane and the tail of a horse, the hindquarters of a gazelle and the horns of a buffalo.
This enigmatic creature stars the world's most magnificent wildlife show the annual wildebeest migration dubbed "one of the New Seven Wonders of the World" by a jury of experts polled by US' ABC Television in 2006. Typically, June and July witness a mass exodus of upwards of 1 million wildebeest and a few zebra from the Serengeti to the Maasai Mara where the lush grass beckons following the onset of the rains there. The wildebeest retrace their footsteps with amazing precision every October. Therefore the best time to visit the Maasai Mara is July-October every year. Click on the links below to learn more about "nature's spectacular phenomenon" and more ...
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