The Great Migration: Waiting for a Mara River Crossing
By now you know I’m slightly obsessed when it comes to wildlife. Countless kilometers behind the wheel, hours of waiting in the car, questionable routes over terrible roads: as long as there’s something special to see, I’ll go far. This time it was the Mecca of game parks: the Masai Mara in southwestern Kenya. Getting there ticked every one of those boxes.
Self-driving to the Masai Mara?!
The Mara had been on my list for ages, but I hadn’t really figured out how to approach the park. A bit of research made clear it would be a challenge: everyone online advised flying in or joining a tour operator, because the road was supposedly horrendous. I decided to drive anyway. After enough African roads, you get used to a bit of corrugation.
The gateway town to the Mara is Narok. After a last proper espresso in this final civilized stop came the 80 kilometers to the gate: ten kilometers of tar full of potholes, thirty kilometers of freshly built, perfectly smooth Chinese tarmac, and then a long, bumpy stretch of dirt. The tour operators flew past me, but with a good shaking I made it to the gate.
Finding the right spot
The next mystery was finding the right place to be. The Masai Mara National Reserve is only one part of the ecosystem. Around it lie conservancies managed by different Masai communities. A tip from fellow travelers pointed me to the Mara Triangle: you can camp there, and crucially, you’re on the right side of the river for the wildebeest crossings. That was the whole point of this trip. When I finally reached the Mara Triangle gate, it was on. 414 US dollars lighter (for just two nights) but buzzing with anticipation, I drove towards the river.
More wildebeest than you can count
A bit further on, dozens of tour operator vehicles were parked near the river. I joined them, wondering why everyone kept such a distance from the water. Turns out that’s the strategy: you let the first ten or twenty animals commit to the crossing, then race to the riverbank for the view. The operators give each other nothing; they’ll trade paint if you’re not careful. That first afternoon, thousands of wildebeest stood on the far bank, perfectly content to stay there. I gave up, drove to my campsite, and watched the sun set over the plains from a hilltop instead.
A new day, a new attempt
Mornings don’t start much better than waking up in the Mara with a real chance of seeing a crossing that day. After an early game drive I returned to the same spot as the day before. It was quiet at first, but within an hour some forty cars had gathered. After a couple of false starts from the herd, I gave up on that spot.
Time for a break instead. Alone in the middle of the Mara plains, I brewed proper coffee with the percolator and took in the endless view. Sometimes the waiting is half the experience.
Next to National Geographic Wild
Recharged, I drove to a quieter spot along the river. The only other vehicles belonged to a Nat Geo Wild crew. I used to watch that channel for hours, and now I was parked next to them. While I was chatting with the crew, a herd of wildebeest suddenly came past on the far side… and ran straight past the crossing point. Two minutes later they all turned around and went for it.
It happened. Maybe the most beautiful thing I’d seen on the whole trip (yes, I say that a lot). In about ten minutes, more than a thousand animals came through the river. I had spent 7.5 hours parked at that riverbank, and it was worth every minute: the crossing happened close to where I stood, right where the animals climbed out, with hardly another car around. A day I will never forget.
That evening I raised a glass to the wildebeest next to a crackling fire. There was nobody else on the patch of bush they call a campsite, just me and the animals out there in the dark. What an experience. It was also my second Great Migration sighting, after the Serengeti in Tanzania, but that’s another story.