Kenya: Lake Nakuru and the Masai Mara

Arrive in Nairobi

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to your hotel in Nairobi

• Welcome dinner
• Nuit : Nairobi
• Environ 1 h de route

Soir

Then we sit down together to a welcome dinner at a local restaurant, a first taste of nyama choma, Kenya's grilled meat, with sukuma wiki greens and ugali.

Compris

• Pick-up at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner

Down into the Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha

Nairobi to the Rift Valley escarpment, then Lake Naivasha and Crescent Island

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Naivasha
• Environ 2.5 h de route

Matin

After breakfast we leave Nairobi on the A104, climbing past the tea gardens and smallholder farms around Limuru until the road reaches the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment. We stop at a viewpoint where the valley floor opens out far below, with the cone of Mount Longonot, a dormant volcano, standing over the plain.

Après-midi

Then it is down the escarpment to Lake Naivasha, about two and a half hours in all, in time for lunch at our lodge on the shore. Naivasha is one of the few freshwater lakes in the Kenyan Rift, at about 1,880 m, and its margins are busy with hippos, pelicans, cormorants and African fish eagles. In the late afternoon, when the heat has gone out of the day, a local boatman takes us out on the lake to watch the hippos at a safe distance, then lands us on Crescent Island, a private sanctuary with no large predators, where you walk among giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and waterbuck with a local guide.

Soir

Dinner is at the lodge.

Compris

• Rift Valley viewpoint on the escarpment
• Lunch and dinner at the lodge
• Boat trip on Lake Naivasha
• Guided walk on Crescent Island

Activités en option

• Cycling through the gorge in Hell's Gate National Park, in place of the Crescent Island walk (price confirmed at booking)

Rhinos at Lake Nakuru

Lake Naivasha to Lake Nakuru National Park and back

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Lake Naivasha
• Environ 3 h de route

Matin

We leave the lodge at about 6:30 am with a packed breakfast and drive about an hour and a half north through Gilgil to Lake Nakuru National Park, so we are inside soon after the gates open, when animals are active and the air is still cool. The park was fenced in the 1980s as a sanctuary for rhinos, and it is one of the most reliable places in Kenya to see both black and white rhinos. Rothschild's giraffes, buffalo, waterbuck and big troops of olive baboons are common; lions and leopards are possible but never promised. Flamingos are a different story: since the lake rose sharply in the 2010s their numbers have swung from very few to many, so we do not count on them.

Après-midi

We drive up to Baboon Cliff for the view over the whole lake, then sit down to lunch at a lodge inside the park. We are back at Naivasha by mid-afternoon, with the rest of the day free by the water.

Compris

• Morning game drive in Lake Nakuru National Park, park fee included
• Baboon Cliff viewpoint
• Sit-down lunch inside the park
• Dinner at the lodge

Across Maasai country to the Mara

Lake Naivasha to Mai Mahiu and Narok, then a conservancy on the edge of the Masai Mara

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Masai Mara
• Environ 4.5 h de route

Après-midi

We reach our tented camp in a conservancy bordering the Masai Mara National Reserve in time for a late lunch. After a rest, the camp's Maasai guides take us out in open vehicles for the first drive, until the light goes.

Compris

• Coffee stop in Narok
• Lunch and dinner at camp
• Late-afternoon game drive in the conservancy in an open vehicle with Maasai guides
• Conservancy fees

A conservancy day: dawn, on foot and at dusk

A full day in the Mara conservancy

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Masai Mara

Matin

Coffee comes before dawn, and we are out on the first drive as the light comes up, when lions and hyenas are often still on the move. Conservancies are private land leased from Maasai families and set aside for wildlife, with a cap on vehicles at each sighting and rules that let guides leave the track to follow an animal, which the main reserve does not allow. We are back at camp for a late breakfast, then the middle of the day is yours: sleep, read on your veranda or watch the plains from the shade.

Après-midi

Before lunch, if you like, walk out with two Maasai guides for about two hours to read tracks, learn the plants herders use as medicine, and hear how cattle and wildlife share this land. After afternoon tea we head out again for the late drive and stop on a rise for a sundowner as the sun drops.

Soir

Some conservancies also allow night drives with a spotlight, which we offer as an option.

Compris

• Dawn game drive in the conservancy
• Guided bush walk with Maasai guides
• Late-afternoon game drive with a sundowner
• All meals at camp

Activités en option

• Night drive with a spotlight, where the conservancy allows it (price confirmed at booking)
• Hot-air balloon flight at sunrise with a bush breakfast (price confirmed at booking)

A full day in the Masai Mara National Reserve

From the conservancy into the Masai Mara National Reserve and out to the Mara River

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Masai Mara

Matin

We leave camp at about 6:30 am with breakfast packed, enter at the nearest gate and work west across open grassland towards the Mara River, stopping wherever something is worth waiting for. Every guest has a window, and the roof lifts so you can stand to watch and photograph. The river holds hippos and large Nile crocodiles all year. From about July to October in most years the great herds of wildebeest and zebra arrive from Tanzania's Serengeti, and some groups cross the river; when and where they cross changes daily and from year to year, so a crossing is a chance, not a promise. Outside those months the reserve still has its resident lions, elephants, buffalo, cheetahs and plains game.

Soir

Lunch is a picnic in the shade of a tree, and we are back at camp around sunset.

Compris

• Full-day game drive in the Masai Mara National Reserve, reserve fee included
• The Mara River and its hippo pools
• Picnic lunch in the reserve
• Dinner at camp

Fly back to Nairobi and the Giraffe Centre

Mara airstrip to Wilson Airport by light aircraft, then Langata in Nairobi

• Petit-déjeuner, repas du midi et repas du soir
• Nuit : Nairobi
• Environ 1 h de route

Matin

One last short drive at first light, then breakfast and a transfer to the nearest airstrip for a scheduled light-aircraft flight back to Wilson Airport in Nairobi, about an hour in the air, sometimes with a stop at another Mara airstrip. Flying saves the five to six hour drive on the road we came in on and gives you a last look at the plains from above.

Soir

The planes take a soft bag of about 15 kg per person, so your main bag rides back in our vehicle, which makes the five to six hour road trip today and brings it to the hotel by the evening. After lunch in Karen we visit the Giraffe Centre in Langata, where the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife breeds Rothschild's giraffes, a rare subspecies, and you can feed them from a raised platform at head height. The rest of the afternoon is free: the Karen Blixen Museum, once the farmhouse of the author of Out of Africa, is a few minutes away. In the evening we gather for a farewell dinner.

Compris

• Short game drive at first light
• Scheduled light-aircraft flight from the Masai Mara to Wilson Airport, Nairobi
• Lunch in Karen
• Giraffe Centre, Langata
• Farewell dinner

Activités en option

• Karen Blixen Museum

The elephant nursery and home

Nairobi to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust nursery, then Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

• Petit-déjeuner
• Environ 1.5 h de route

Matin

A slow breakfast, then late in the morning we visit the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's elephant nursery inside Nairobi National Park for its one-hour public visit (currently 11 am to noon), when the keepers bring the orphaned baby elephants out for their milk feed and a mud bath and tell the story of how each one was rescued. Visits must be booked ahead, and we do that for you.

Soir

Afterwards there is time for lunch and a last look at the city, and a day room at the hotel to shower and repack before an evening flight. Your guide sees you to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, about 30 to 45 minutes away depending on traffic, and checks your flight before saying goodbye. To see the elephants, book a flight leaving after about 5 pm. If your flight is earlier, we take you straight to the airport after breakfast instead, and the visit is skipped.

Compris

• Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant nursery public visit
• Day room at the hotel
• Drop-off at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (NBO)