The Great Migration - Part 1
It has been on mind for a long time to visit the Serengiti and watch the Great Migration for once in my life. You can practically call it as one item on my bucket list. Of course this did not get added after my interest in birding, this has been in there from the time I watched it on Animal planet in my childhood. The actual plan started back in Jan where we were looking up places and how many days we should stay in the Serengiti. Every plan we made ended up higher on our budget for Serengiti. We eventually moved the plan over to the Kenya side of the forest called as Masai Mara. The budget seemed perfectly fit and the locations were as good as Serengiti. We found the right partner who could book us the hotels and give us the best vehicles possible.
The dates were locked, the stays confirmed and it was now just waiting for the D-Day to arrive. Group size was 10, a mix of veg and non-vegetarians. But we were told Kenya is no different from India in culture and we would get a lot of options for vegetarians too. The group was also a mix between clickers, twitchers and gazers. A couple of photographers started looking all around into their camera gears and checking at every option of upgrading or bettering their equipment for this trip alone. While the other group started looking for a better pair of Binoculars. There were 2 kids also among the group accompanied by their mothers who also got fully ready for this trip. International flights allow a lot more luggage allowance compared to the domestic and a few of us were ready to use that extra space.
Great Migration is majorly known for the movement of Wildebeest and Zebra from the dry grass lands to the freshly grown green grass areas. During the process, they do cross the Masai Mara river which is infested by crocodiles and that river crossing is also a sight to watch. We started watching all these videos on internet over and over to prepare ourselves on how to capture the same while we are there. Masai Mara being just a fraction of size of Serengiti, it still is a large reserve and holds a lot of life in it.
The dates were fixed for this - Sep 3 - Sep 14. The gear equipped. Group fixed. Targets locked.
Destination No of Nights Nairobi 1 Amboseli 2 Naivasha 2 Nakuru 1 Masaimara 3To be continued…
