Safari places, Game Parks, East Africa - Brief notes on a selected few
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania
The mighty Serengeti stretches 14,763 sq km (5,700 sq miles) stretching north to Kenya and bordering Lake Victoria to the West. It is one of the world's best known National Parks. Its vast, endlessly rolling, Acacia-studded grassland savannahs, riverine forests, swamps, and hills and valleys are home to countless species of numerous wild animals – not to mention birds – as well as the 1.5 million wildebeest which annually migrate northwards – together with tens of thousands of zebras – into Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve for a month or two every year.
Serengeti also has a large Lion population. Balloon Safaris in the Serengeti are very popular.
The park also has over 518 identified bird species where some of them are Eurasian migrants who are present in the European winter months from October to April.
Ngorongoro Conservancy
The Ngorongoro Conservancy is located in the Crater Highlands of Northeastern Tanzania. The conservancy, an intrinsic part of the Serengeti ecosystem, borders Serengeti National Park to the Northwest and is on the path of the annual wildebeeste and zebra migration. From the vast Serengeti National Park plains to the Eastern arm of the Great Rift Valley, the Ngorongoro Conservancy Area stretches out into a stunning area of 8,292 Sq. KM. Its magnificent savannah plains, highlands and forest canopies harbour the Big 5, including a dense population of lions, wildebeests, zebras and gazelles.
H ad it not become the world's sixth-largest unbroken caldera, then what is now known as the Ngorongoro crater could have been a towering volcanic mountain, as high as Kilimanjaro. The crater is the flagship tourism feature for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is a large, unbroken, un-flooded caldera, formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed some three million years ago. The Ngorongoro crater sinks to a depth of 610 metres, with a base area covering 260 square kilometres. The height of the original volcano must have ranged between 4,500 to 5,800 metres high. Apart from the main caldera, Ngorongoro also has two other volcanic craters: Olmoti and Empakai, the former famous for its stunning waterfalls, and the latter holding a deep lake and lush, green walls.
On the leeward of the Ngorongoro highlands protrudes the iconic Oldonyo Lengai, an active volcano and Tanzania's third highest peak after Kilimanjaro and Meru. Known to local people as the Mountain of God, Mount Lengai's last major eruption occurred in 2007. At the mountain's foot is Lake Natron, East Africa's major breeding ground for flamingoes.
The conservancy boasts a harmonious co-existence of man and beast as it is home to the nomadic Maasai pastoralists. Within the conservancy are other renowned natural wonders and heritage sites, including Oldonyo Lengai Mountain, Lake Natron, Olmoti and Empakai craters, and the Olduvai Gorge. The Olduvai Gorge is a famous archaeological site where the Neanderthal man, the Zinjanthropus, whose skull was discovered at the gorge by Dr. Leaky in 1959.
More information at ngorongorocrater.org
Maasai Mara National Reserve (Masai Mara) is situated in south-west Kenya and is one of Africa’s Greatest Wildlife Reserves. Together with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania it forms Africa’s most diverse, incredible and most spectacular eco-systems and possibly the world’s top safari big game viewing eco-system. The Masai Mara National Reserve stretches 1,510 sq km (580 sq miles) and raises 1,500-2,170 meters above sea level. Add the conservancies and the area is at least twice the size. It hosts over 95 species of mammals and over 570 recorded species of birds.
It is about 270 km from Nairobi and takes about 4-5 hours by road or 40-45 minutes by flight. The road is great for the most part.
Best Time To Visit
With the wildebeest migration in JULY – OCTOBER, this is the best time to see this incredible movement of animals. Although it is not guaranteed that the wildebeest get to Masai Mara, it has yet to let us down. Also, December to February are great times as it is dryer and good for the Big Cats.
The Masai Mara is an all year round destination with the big cats, and all the big game still in the Maasai Mara Ecosystem.
Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
This 2,850 km2 park, the 6th largest in Tanzania and possibly its best well kept secret, was established in a naturally dry area in the northern part of the country in 1970, and was the fifth conservation area to be declared after the country’s independence in 1961. Mostly made up of savannah grassland, Tarangire also boasts rolling hills, rocky outcrops, extensive swamps and Acacia woodlands as well as an unusually large number of huge Baobab trees.
Because of the permanent, life-giving water flowing through the park by way of the Tarangire River, it has one of the highest concentrations of wildlife between the long rains in April and May, and the short rains in November. It is also a bird watcher’s paradise with its more than 550 species of birds, and the swamps support the largest number of breeding bird species to be found anywhere in the world.
While there is also an abundance of all forms of wildlife throughout the year, Tarangire is especially renowned for its large herds of elephants, tree climbing lions, huge pythons, its herds of oryx which are regularly seen, and also for its rock paintings which were done by early man tens of thousands of years ago.
It is also one of the few National Parks in East Africa where you can get high in a hot air balloon, and where nature walks and night game drives are allowed in the conservancies which border the park.
Amboseli National Park, Kenya, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is in Loitokotok District, Kajiado County in Kenya. 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast from the capital city Nairobi, Amboseli National Park is the second most popular national park in Kenya after Maasai Mara National Reserve.
The park is 39,206 hectares (392 km2; 151 sq mi) in size at the core of an 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants among other wildlife species. Other attraction of the park includes opportunities to meet the Maasai people and also offers spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area (average 350 mm (14 in)) one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including water birds, pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hammerkops and 47 types of raptor.
The mighty Serengeti stretches 14,763 sq km (5,700 sq miles) stretching north to Kenya and bordering Lake Victoria to the West. It is one of the world's best known National Parks. Its vast, endlessly rolling, Acacia-studded grassland savannahs, riverine forests, swamps, and hills and valleys are home to countless species of numerous wild animals – not to mention birds – as well as the 1.5 million wildebeest which annually migrate northwards – together with tens of thousands of zebras – into Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve for a month or two every year.
Serengeti also has a large Lion population. Balloon Safaris in the Serengeti are very popular.
The park also has over 518 identified bird species where some of them are Eurasian migrants who are present in the European winter months from October to April.
Ngorongoro Conservancy
The Ngorongoro Conservancy is located in the Crater Highlands of Northeastern Tanzania. The conservancy, an intrinsic part of the Serengeti ecosystem, borders Serengeti National Park to the Northwest and is on the path of the annual wildebeeste and zebra migration. From the vast Serengeti National Park plains to the Eastern arm of the Great Rift Valley, the Ngorongoro Conservancy Area stretches out into a stunning area of 8,292 Sq. KM. Its magnificent savannah plains, highlands and forest canopies harbour the Big 5, including a dense population of lions, wildebeests, zebras and gazelles.
H ad it not become the world's sixth-largest unbroken caldera, then what is now known as the Ngorongoro crater could have been a towering volcanic mountain, as high as Kilimanjaro. The crater is the flagship tourism feature for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. It is a large, unbroken, un-flooded caldera, formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed some three million years ago. The Ngorongoro crater sinks to a depth of 610 metres, with a base area covering 260 square kilometres. The height of the original volcano must have ranged between 4,500 to 5,800 metres high. Apart from the main caldera, Ngorongoro also has two other volcanic craters: Olmoti and Empakai, the former famous for its stunning waterfalls, and the latter holding a deep lake and lush, green walls.
On the leeward of the Ngorongoro highlands protrudes the iconic Oldonyo Lengai, an active volcano and Tanzania's third highest peak after Kilimanjaro and Meru. Known to local people as the Mountain of God, Mount Lengai's last major eruption occurred in 2007. At the mountain's foot is Lake Natron, East Africa's major breeding ground for flamingoes.
The conservancy boasts a harmonious co-existence of man and beast as it is home to the nomadic Maasai pastoralists. Within the conservancy are other renowned natural wonders and heritage sites, including Oldonyo Lengai Mountain, Lake Natron, Olmoti and Empakai craters, and the Olduvai Gorge. The Olduvai Gorge is a famous archaeological site where the Neanderthal man, the Zinjanthropus, whose skull was discovered at the gorge by Dr. Leaky in 1959.
More information at ngorongorocrater.org
Maasai Mara National Reserve (Masai Mara) is situated in south-west Kenya and is one of Africa’s Greatest Wildlife Reserves. Together with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania it forms Africa’s most diverse, incredible and most spectacular eco-systems and possibly the world’s top safari big game viewing eco-system. The Masai Mara National Reserve stretches 1,510 sq km (580 sq miles) and raises 1,500-2,170 meters above sea level. Add the conservancies and the area is at least twice the size. It hosts over 95 species of mammals and over 570 recorded species of birds.
It is about 270 km from Nairobi and takes about 4-5 hours by road or 40-45 minutes by flight. The road is great for the most part.
Best Time To Visit
With the wildebeest migration in JULY – OCTOBER, this is the best time to see this incredible movement of animals. Although it is not guaranteed that the wildebeest get to Masai Mara, it has yet to let us down. Also, December to February are great times as it is dryer and good for the Big Cats.
The Masai Mara is an all year round destination with the big cats, and all the big game still in the Maasai Mara Ecosystem.
Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
This 2,850 km2 park, the 6th largest in Tanzania and possibly its best well kept secret, was established in a naturally dry area in the northern part of the country in 1970, and was the fifth conservation area to be declared after the country’s independence in 1961. Mostly made up of savannah grassland, Tarangire also boasts rolling hills, rocky outcrops, extensive swamps and Acacia woodlands as well as an unusually large number of huge Baobab trees.
Because of the permanent, life-giving water flowing through the park by way of the Tarangire River, it has one of the highest concentrations of wildlife between the long rains in April and May, and the short rains in November. It is also a bird watcher’s paradise with its more than 550 species of birds, and the swamps support the largest number of breeding bird species to be found anywhere in the world.
While there is also an abundance of all forms of wildlife throughout the year, Tarangire is especially renowned for its large herds of elephants, tree climbing lions, huge pythons, its herds of oryx which are regularly seen, and also for its rock paintings which were done by early man tens of thousands of years ago.
It is also one of the few National Parks in East Africa where you can get high in a hot air balloon, and where nature walks and night game drives are allowed in the conservancies which border the park.
Amboseli National Park, Kenya, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is in Loitokotok District, Kajiado County in Kenya. 240 kilometers (150 miles) southeast from the capital city Nairobi, Amboseli National Park is the second most popular national park in Kenya after Maasai Mara National Reserve.
The park is 39,206 hectares (392 km2; 151 sq mi) in size at the core of an 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi) ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. It is famous for being the best place in Africa to get close to free-ranging elephants among other wildlife species. Other attraction of the park includes opportunities to meet the Maasai people and also offers spectacular views of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.The local people are mainly Maasai, but people from other parts of the country have settled there attracted by the successful tourist-driven economy and intensive agriculture along the system of swamps that makes this low-rainfall area (average 350 mm (14 in)) one of the best wildlife-viewing experiences in the world with 400 species of birds including water birds, pelicans, kingfishers, crakes, hammerkops and 47 types of raptor.