We are grateful for booking this safari with Shagami Kenya Tours and Safaris, We are indeed grateful and thankful. Everything went well as prescribed. The Masai Mara is where the BBC’s Big Cat Diaries were filmed, and unsurprisingly it ranks as one of the finest reserves anywhere in Africa for big cat sightings. Above all, I associate it with lions: I’ve often encountered four or five prides in the space of a day here, and it is one of the few places where I’ve regularly seen prides of 20 or more individuals, and enjoyed the spectacle of these heavyweight cats mating. I’ve also yet to go more than a couple of days in the Mara without seeing leopard or cheetah, while other predators, notably jackals and hyenas, are also common. Other great things about the Mara include the spectacular wildebeest migration, which usually crosses into the reserve from Tanzania from July or August to October, the opportunity to see wildlife from a hot air balloon, and the scenery in the westerly ‘Mara Triangle’, which lies below the Oloololo Escarpment (part of the Rift Valley Wall). It is worth noting that parts of the Mara can become very crowded, especially during the migration season, so I always try to stick to the less crowded western part of the reserve, or – better still – one of the restricted access private Maasai conservancies that border it.


























