The air vibrates with the grunts and shuffling hooves. The beards of wildebeest glint silver in the morning light. Hyenas skulk in the fringes of the herds, their smiles dip-dyed in blood, while crocodiles fatten in the Mara River after easy kills. The wildebeest migration is a remarkable annual event when more than a million of these animals leave Tanzania’s Serengeti behind them to unfurl into Kenya’s Maasai Mara — a slow invasion smudging the horizon in charcoal-black.
It lives up to every cliché: telephoto lenses whirring, hot air balloons sweeping by for a better view, zebras blazing brightly against the streaks of rain. But should you pull away from this iconic attraction towards the outskirts of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, there’s another kind of safari that’s less about looking at the “big show”, and more about moving in and among the wildlife, travelling at a pace in tune with the animals.
The region flanking the national reserve is made up of a number of contiguous conservancies, including Mara Naboisho, Olare Motorogi and Mara North. There are no fences dividing any of these zones from each other, nor from the reserve. The wildlife is free to spill.