Your Masai Mara with Great Plains Highlights Tour Begins!

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This morning you'll meet up with your guide and head off to the Wilson airport for your one hour flight to Chyulu Hills. 

Chyulu Hills National Park is a striking landscape of emerald green hills, open vistas, dense forests and pools of water with reflections of white clouds in azure blue skies. Remote and wild, the park and surrounding conservancies are largely untouched by humans with the exception of the Maasai warriors who protect and depend upon the land. Described by Ernest Hemingway as "The Green Hills of Africa," this Kenyan treasure is not known as a big game destination, but rather, it is one of the few places where you will find almost no signs of tourism, lending to the surreal sense of isolation amidst surrounding resident fauna.

Game drives are the paramount way to see the large mammals during your safari in Chyulu Hills Park. Because few visitors come to this outback, you will have an uncommon story to share with those who have not personally experienced the beauty of Chyulu.Your Maasai guide is native to this land and has an extensive knowledge of the animals and habitats. Under his lead, you see giraffes adeptly use their long tongues to extract the leaves of the acacia trees while delicately avoiding the thorns.

You will truly appreciate your guide’s skills, experience and knowledge when he locates the most elusive animals in the park -- leopards and other stealthy predators, as well as elephants, buffalos, rhinos and other grazers. More diverse fauna are wildebeest, impala, bushbuck, oryx, eland, reedbuck, steinbok and other hoofed herbivores.

Bush walks and hiking excursions give you a different perspective of the Chyulu Hills eco-systems, as your guide helps you identify insects, plants and tiny mammals that rustle in the bush as you pass. Another activity for your exquisite Kenya vacation is to spend the day horseback riding with a guide, and settling in at night in a traditional fly camp. AfricanMecca Safaris can also arrange mountain bike excursions, birding trips and cultural activities for your visit to Chyulu.

Included Activities: Day game drives, night game drives, birdwatching, safari bush walks, horseback riding, and mountain biking

Optional Activities: Maasai village cultural visit

Where you’ll be staying

• Ol Donyo Lodge (or similar)
• Comfort

Depart the Laikipia Private Conservancy for your one hour and 15 minute flight to Masai Mara National Reserve.

Offering superb plains scenery, unmatched safari activities and diverse wildlife, Masai Mara National Reserve is considered Kenya’s best park and one of Africa’s highest wildlife density region for predators. The reserve covers 583 square miles (1510 square kilometers) of outstanding wilderness in southwest Kenya. The location, wildlife, activities and comfortable moderate climate puts Mara at the top of the list, even for the most discerning AfricanMecca traveler to Kenya. Many private conservancies have been introduced to protect the land that surrounds the reserve, thereby providing more area for wildlife. The lands not only protect habitats for resident species, but also preserve a critical part of the route used by wildebeests and zebras during the Great Migration that traverses the Masai Mara via the Serengeti National Park.

Recognized as one of the most spectacular wildlife events on the planet, the migration is a continuous route that is followed by an over 1.5 million wildebeests and thousands of zebras, gazelles and elands. In their never-ending pursuit for the finest grazing and watering grounds, the gnu relocate on an almost constant basis.The migrators of Masai Mara National Reserve are present from approximately late July – early August until end of October – early November. But the Mara offers year-round game viewing. The reserve and surrounding conservancies offer diverse resident species experiences during your safari excursions. You will frequently see impalas, topis, giraffes, elephants, zebras, buffalos, warthogs and other grazing herbivores. With so many prey animals, Masai Mara is a veritable bonanza for large predators, such as lions, cheetahs, leopards, crocodiles and other stealthy, powerful hunters. The abundance of terrestrial animals is enhanced by the presence of more than 450 winged species, including 57 birds of prey. 

Included Activities: Day game drives and river birdwatching, Safari bush walks and night game drives

Optional Activities: Balloon safaris, Maasai village cultural visit, select community and schools visits

Where you’ll be staying

• Mara Expedition Camp (or similar)
• Premier Safari Tier 1