WILDLIFE
18-08-2023 by redazione
August is one of the most beautiful months to discover Kenya's savannah and its inhabitants.
Especially nature, which after the great rains, is at its most beautiful.
In a few days in the Masai Mara the great migration also begins...in short enjoy a good safari but, especially those who will do it for the first time, follow these ten golden rules to organize it and experience it at its best!
The ideal safari should last a minimum of three days, not so much because of the distances to be covered by car, but because of the wonderful experience of getting up at dawn in the savannah and then going to sleep after witnessing the exciting sunset. If your vacation days or budget do not allow, at least two days.
Rely on serious agencies. There are many good and now experienced ones even among the local ones and that are not part of the big Tour Operators, but be wary of those who sell safaris through unofficial channels (on the beach, for example) or middlemen. Better always to go in person to an office (when there is one) view the programs and if possible also the car that will be used.
Do not consider saving 20 or 30 euros and then risk having an inadequate service. The safari is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure; you have to do it right. You can save (sometimes) on a restaurant, on a pair of shoes. On safari it does not pay off.
Safaris done by minibus cost much less, partly because they can "board" more people. But for less expense, they are light years away from a safari taken in an all-terrain vehicle, not least because of the attention given by the driver and/or experienced guide to five, six passengers. Not to mention that the minibuses do not always drive onto some off-road vehicle-friendly tracks.
On a 3-day, two-night safari, inquire how many park tickets will be used, because a single ticket is only valid for 24 hours. Some inadequate or even misleading programs propose 3 days with "odd" departures in the late morning or early afternoon, and return in the early afternoon of the third day. It still means staying in the park only one day, but paying for the safari as if it were two. The rest is a (beautiful, for goodness sake) trip to Africa, but would cost much, much less.
Always ask if the "lodge" or tented camp where you will be staying is inside or outside the National Park. A safari sold for the same price (or even slightly less) but with lodging outside the park, especially to you on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway, is not the best. And having to go out each time to eat lunch also means losing useful time to get around the savanna better.
Those who propose "off-trails," that is, deviating from the pre-arranged trails in National Parks, are committing an infraction. But it is not only that: by doing so you are harming Nature and creating discomfort and stress for animals. If you care about the environment and their increasingly rare original inhabitants, do not incite the driver to leave the trails, and do not accept his or her possible behavior that goes against the rules.
Appropriate clothing certainly helps you enjoy the safari to the fullest: plan for a hat or headgear, given the possibility on ATVs of being able to admire the savanna and animals from the canopy. At the moment, because of the excitement and the wind, you will not feel the sun on your head. The safari is not a day at the beach: plan closed or semi-closed shoes, avoid the savanna in flip-flops (women in heels have also been spotted)! For the evening, plan a jacket or sweater; there is often a temperature range in the savanna.
Try to have suitable camera equipment. If anything, enjoy the spectacle of the savanna and its animals with your own eyes. A mistake first-time safari goers often make is to take thousands of useless and almost all the same pictures with cameras with limited zooms or even cell phones, resulting in thousands of distant animals that were better to look at than to lock up in a one-and-a-half inch screen.
Avoid wasting time in souvenir stores along the way to National Parks. Often these stops are merely a ruse to consume fewer hours in the bush and to earn commissions from shopkeepers. In the bazaars on the outskirts of the Parks there are much the same local handicrafts that you find in the tourist resorts, and they often cost even more expensive.
(with the collaboration of Camilla Frasca Caccia - Bushcompany Safari Kenya)
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