Kenia Tours and Safaris

5 out of 5 of the big five on our Kenia Experience excursion.

We did this four day three night excursion with “KE” in conjunction with our Nomad tour.
 
We were collected from our hotel in Nairobi ‪at 8am‬ for the ~280km, 7.5 hour drive (with a couple of stops) to the Maasai Mara. On arrival at the Olairragai Camp we were greeted by the onsite team and shown to our permanent tents, these were very impressive, large main room and double bed with attached bathroom which included a shower, toilet and hand basin. The camp had set up a wetback hot water system so having hot showers was a real bonus. That same afternoon we visited the neighbouring Maasai Village and learned how they live. Finally on day 1 we entered the Massai Mara National Reserve for the final couple of hours of daylight and within 30 min’s we had been rewarded with sightings of herds of Zebra, Wildebeest and Giraffes which were topped off by a group of Lioness’s feeding on a recent kill watched closely by many Vultures. The preferred Safari vehicles here are 4 Wheel Drive (6 seater) vans with pop up roofs for viewing and photo taking although not as ideal as the 4 wheel drives trucks in the Serengeti they proved adequate & Isaac our driver / guide spoke good English and shared lots of interesting information with us. The second day in the Massai Mara saw us game driving for ~ 11 hours and spotting plenty of game including several Lion and Leopard encounters. So after 2 days we have seen 4 out of 5 of the “Big Five” and on day 3 are leaving the park to visit Lake Nakuru another reasonable travel day traversing the highlands at 2,700 metres above sea level 310km and ~ 6 hours. The accommodation at the Kivu Resort was budget but fine and the resort had a good restaurant and bar and even a 25 metre swimming pool. After settling in we went for our final game drive in the Lake Nakuru National Park, this proved to be so different to the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara as in places the bush was think and close to the road making animal spotting tuff but in other areas it opened up and gave us Rhino (yah 5 out of 5 now) and Flamingo along with plenty of the game animals you would expect to see. The bonus here at the lake are the wonderful water views made available and the changing afternoon sunlight on the water and trees. Final day was the drive back to Nairobi.
Our group was 11 and for that number we had 2 guide / drivers, a cook, an assistant cook, and the crew at the permanent camp in the Maasai Mara.
The game drives in both the Maasai Mara and at Lake Nakuru were good and we saw everything we hoped for other than the Wildebeest migration.
It would be smart to consider how you can protect your camera from the large amount of dust it will endure.