Serengeti National Park Savannah Camps Mara River

TENTS:

tents are custom made walk in tents using heavy duty canvas ensure a spacious ‘room’ complete with:

• en-suite bathrooms
• with twin or double beds,
• crisp linen,
• warm blankets or duvets,
• bedside tables,
• wardrobes
• luggage racks

Lighting is provided by solar power and your bathroom comes complete with a dressing table with fully plumbed washbasin, lavatory and showers – a new, and often surprising, interpretation of ‘camping’. Hot water is available throughout the day and evening and, like your laundry, morning tea or in fact your every need will be arranged by your Butler allowing for a refreshing wash, shower or maybe a shave on the verandah of your tent.

The spacious verandah in front of your room is furnished with comfortable safari chairs and tables – the perfect retreat for a relaxing moment watching a weaver bird building its nest in a nearby Acacia tree, a herd of impala grazing quietly only meters away, or simply relaxing and listening to the sounds of the African bush.

The Mara River flows through Kenya and Tanzania in the continent of Africa, intersecting the migration path of wildebeest and other animals in the Serengeti-Masai Mara game reserves. Over two million animals consisting of wildebeest, zebra and gazelle migrate from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya during July through to October. This movement of hundreds of thousands of animals, often dubbed the Great Migration, is one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world. During their journey they have to cross the perilous Mara River that lies right across their route. The Mara River crossing is considered to be the biggest and the most dramatic of all wildlife crossings, and has been the center of many documentaries.

The migration takes place within the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem. Strictly speaking, there is neither start nor finish as the animals circle the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem in their endless search for food and water. They spend months trekking Serengeti-Masai Plains until they reach the Mara River.

Wildebeest arrive at the Mara River in their tens of thousands, and gather waiting to cross. For days they wait for their brothers to arrive and the numbers keep building up. Eventually the wildebeest choose a crossing point. Usually the chosen point is a fairly placid stretch of water without too much predator-concealing vegetation in the far side, although occasionally they choose seemingly suicidal places and drown in their hundreds.