Kenya Golden Memories Safari

ITINERARY

• DAY 1

  Welcome to Nairobi, Kenya - Fly Samburu Game Reserve

  Arrive at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and meet driver-guide to drive to Samburu Game Reserve arriving for lunch. Afternoon game drives in Samburu Game Reserve.
  
  The Samburu Game Reserve offers what is arguably Kenya’s greatest – and least changed – encounter with the wild Africa of yesteryear. This harsh, savagely beautiful wilderness depends on the steady flow of the Uaso Nyiro River for its existence. The river waters house a wide variety of animal species not found south of the Equator including the majestic Beisa Oryx, the reticulated giraffe, the thin-striped Grevy’s zebra, and the ‘giraffe-necked’ gerenuk antelope, which stands on its hind legs to feed. Elephants, buffalo, lions, and leopards can all be seen along the river. The 400-plus species of birds complete the perfect experience in Samburu. This is the home of the Samburu tribe, cousins of the Maasai, who share the same nomadic, cattle-herding existence, and even stricter adherence to their age-old rites and customs.
  
  Samburu National Reserve was one of the two areas in which conservationists George and Joy Adamson raised Elsa the Lioness. Their story was made famous by the bestselling book and award-winning movie "Born Free". Samburu National Reserve is situated on the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro River in dry northern Kenya and neighbors the homes of the Samburu tribe of Kenya, a tribe known for their remote culture, pastoral and nomadic way of life.
  
  The presence of the Ewaso Ngiro River and its shady trees attracts plenty of wildlife such as giraffes, large herds of elephants, buffalo, gerenuks, gazelle, waterbuck, and zebra (including the endangered Grevy's zebra) from the surrounding savannah plains trek to the water, Lion, leopard, and cheetah are also quite easy to spot, thanks in part to the lack of grass cover.
  
  Birdlife is as plentiful as wildlife at Samburu National Reserve, which boasts over 350 different species of birds including vultures, kingfishers, marabous, bateleurs, guinea fowl, Somali ostriches, and others.

  What's included?

  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 2

  Samburu Game Reserve - Game Drive

  Breakfast in the hotel and depart for a full day game drive with picnic lunch boxes or enjoy morning and afternoon. Alternatively, enjoy game drives in Samburu Game Reserve with a lunch break in between the game drives.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
• DAY 3

  Lake Nakuru National Park - Kenya’s largest population of rhinos and is home to Lion Hills

  Breakfast in the hotel and drive to Lake Nakuru National Park heading straight for a game drive in Lake Nakuru National Park. The Park is established in 1961 and gazette in 1968 as a National Park, the park has Kenya’s largest population of rhinos and is home to Lion Hills, Makalia waterfalls, unique vegetation, Picturesque landscape, yellow acacia woodlands, and a wide range of birds most famous being Flamingos and Pelicans. Located in the Great Rift Valley Lake System, the park is also an ecologically significant region having been named a RAMSAR Site and Important Bird Area covering 73 square miles (188 sq. km). Lake Nakuru is world-famous for flamingos and was created as a National Park to protect, its stunning flocks of lesser flamingos which turn its shores pink. These are the millions of flamingos seeking their food in the salty deep-green waters of Lake Nakuru. The park is indeed a birds’ paradise hosting over 500 species.
  
  Animals include Thomson gazelles, Grants gazelles, impalas, waterbucks, giraffes, buffaloes, or even black rhino, leopards, and about 450 bird species in total. Buffalo, leopard, lion, Rothschild Giraffe, White, and Black Colobus monkey are plentiful in the forest. The bushlands offer eland, Steinbok, impala, Chandler’s Reedbuck, and dik dik, whilst rock hyrax and klipspringer occupy the cliffs and escarpment.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 4

  Nakuru National Park - Game Drive

  Depart for a full day game drive with picnic lunch boxes or enjoy morning and afternoon game drives in Lake Nakuru National Park with a lunch break in between the game drives.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 5

  Maasai Mara Game Reserve - Visit The Maasai Cultural Village

  After breakfast drive to Maasai Mara Game Reserve, have lunch at your hotel, and enjoy the afternoon game drive in the Game Reserve.
  Afternoon visit to a Maasai Cultural Village: This afternoon, join the Masai dancers donning their African regalia and the jingling on their feet, flow by the rhythm of African beats, and dance to their tunes that will leave you refreshed.
  
  Masai Mara Game Reserve is the Land of Big Cat Diary , and Disney’s African Cats is considered a "must-see" for any traveling on a safari to Kenya. The park is graced by a wide variety of unique and exquisite wildlife and birds. Masai Mara is the best place to see the "Big Five" animals like elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos , and buffalos.
  
  Home of the Great Wildebeest Migration: The location of the ’ Annual Great Wildebeest Migration’ – one of the natural wonders of the world – is a gloriously beautiful, wildlife-rich savannah landscape. The annual wildebeest migration from June to October consists of over 1.5 million wildebeests, gazelles genus, and Zebras roar converge at the border of Tanzania’s Serengeti and Kenya’s Masai Mara making a spectacular entrance in a surging column of life that stretches from horizon to horizon, before finally plunging wildly into the raging waters of the Mara River, creating a frenzy as they fight against swift currents and waiting hungry crocodiles takes priority. Those that survive crocodiles and raging waters cross over to the patiently waiting predators such as hyenas, jackals, leopards, and lions for another survival battle.
  
  Wildlife – The Mara is known as one of the finest wildlife destinations in the World. There is an excellent chance of seeing the Big 5, cheetah, serval, hyena, bat-eared foxes, black-backed and side-striped jackals, hippo, crocodile, baboons, warthog, topi, eland, Thompson’s gazelle, Grant’s, etc.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 6

  Masai Mara Game Reserve - Game Drive

  Breakfast in the hotel and depart for a full day game drive with picnic lunch boxes or enjoy morning and afternoon game drives in Masai Mara Game Reserve with a lunch break in between the game drives.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
• DAY 7

  Masai Mara Game Reserve - Game Drive

  Breakfast in the hotel and depart for a full day game drive with picnic lunch boxes or enjoy morning and afternoon game drives in Masai Mara Game Reserve with a lunch break in between the game drives.
  
  Today the recommended activity of enjoying an early morning hot air balloon ride looking out over the stunning landscape of the Mara Plains. Masai Mara Balloon Ride is for those going for the balloon safari, you will be going for the early morning balloon, you will be picked up at the hotel at 5.30 am, and drive to the balloon launch site where you will gather for takeoff. Enjoy early morning ballooning over the plains, getting a bird’s eye view of the game below as the sun creeps slowly over the horizon. After approximately one hour aloft, the balloon lands while breakfast is being prepared for us nearby. The smell of bacon, sausages, and eggs drifts in the breeze as we sample exotic Kenyan fruits and homemade pastries and if you wish, glasses of bubbly to toast our flight, a tradition initiated by the Montgolfier brothers.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
• DAY 8

  Lake Naivasha - Boat Ride and Bird Watching

  After breakfast drive to Lake Naivasha arriving for lunch. Check in to your hotel. After lunch enjoys an afternoon boat ride and bird watching in Lake Naivasha.
  
  Lake Naivasha boat ride is a freshwater lake lying North West of Nairobi. The lake is well known for boat rides and as a gateway to Crescent Island. You witness the various animals and birds in the lake during the boat ride. Among the resident, birds are fish eagles, ospreys, lily-trotters, black crakes, and a variety of herons. Hippos also live in the lake. The waters of the lake draw a great range of game to the shores. Giraffes wander among the acacia. Hippos wallow in the swamps and Colobus monkeys call from the treetops while the Lake's large hippo populations sleep the day out in the shallows.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
  • Cruise/Boat
• DAY 9

  Amboseli National Park - Game Drive

  Breakfast in the hotel and depart for a full-day game drive with picnic lunch boxes. Amboseli National Park, at the foot of Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, is one of Kenya's most popular national parks.  It lies 150 miles southeast of Nairobi, very close to the Tanzania border. The snow-capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro rising above the clouds dominates every aspect of Amboseli.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 10

  Amboseli National Park

  Breakfast in the hotel and depart for a morning game drive returning to the lodge for lunch and departing again for an afternoon game drive in the Park.
  
  At the base of the mighty Mt Kilimanjaro and at the heart of a huge semi-arid ecosystem lies Amboseli NP. The park is relatively small, with an extension of 244 miles (392 Km) at an altitude of 0.7 miles (1,1 km) above sea level. It consists mainly of flat grasslands surrounding the evergreen swamps fed by the melting snow of the mountain. These marshes provide water and food to the huge herds of herbivores that inhabit the area. In the west of the park is the Amboseli Pan, an immense seasonal lake that is dry for most of the year. Beautiful scenes of thirsty animals crossing the pan are fascinating.
  
  Amboseli is a very dry place. Its name comes from the words for White dust in the Maasai language. The landscape is harsh; dust storms frequently erupt when the wind picks up. The contrast of the arid and treeless plains with the evergreen swamps is amazing.
  
  Although Amboseli is home to big herds of Zebras, Gazelles, Buffalos and Wildebeests, Lions, Cheetahs, and a great variety of water birds, its main attraction is the great population of Elephants. Over 1,000 of these fascinating creatures live in the ecosystem and visit Amboseli regularly. It is fantastic to watch them walk to and from the swamps in the mornings and evenings. During times of plenty, Elephants concentrate sometimes in hundreds, with old bulls following the herds of females and calves.
  
  Photographically it is very rewarding. Its flat and dusty plains and dry lake beds provide amazing backdrops for dramatic and evocative images, especially in certain remote areas of the park. In the early mornings and late afternoons, the snowy peak of Mt Kilimanjaro may emerge from the clouds, and when a herd of Elephants appears in the distance it is one of the most iconic scenes in the entire African continent.
  
  Highlights in Amboseli:
  
  - Views of Mt. Kilimanjaro either in the morning or in the evening when the weather permits.
  - The great views of Elephants on the background of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
  - Great views of other animals in the various open fields in Amboseli.
  - The cultural aspect of the Masai community if we get to visit them in their villages outside Amboseli.
  - Great views of sunrise and sunset across the savannah grassland.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
  • Transfer
• DAY 11

  Amboseli National Park - Home to big herds of Zebras, Gazelles, Buffalos and Wildebeests, Lions, Cheetahs, and a great variety of water birds, its main attraction is the great population of Elephants.

  Amboseli is a very dry place. Its name comes from the words for White dust in the Maasai language. The landscape is harsh; dust storms frequently erupt when the wind picks up. The contrast of the arid and treeless plains with the evergreen swamps is amazing.
  
  Although Amboseli is home to big herds of Zebras, Gazelles, Buffalos and Wildebeests, Lions, Cheetahs, and a great variety of water birds, its main attraction is the great population of Elephants. Over 1,000 of these fascinating creatures live in the ecosystem and visit Amboseli regularly. It is fantastic to watch them walk to and from the swamps in the mornings and evenings. During times of plenty, Elephants concentrate sometimes in hundreds, with old bulls following the herds of females and calves.
  
  Photographically it is very rewarding. Its flat and dusty plains and dry lake beds provide amazing backdrops for dramatic and evocative images, especially in certain remote areas of the park. In the early mornings and late afternoons, the snowy peak of Mt Kilimanjaro may emerge from the clouds, and when a herd of Elephants appears in the distance it is one of the most iconic scenes in the entire African continent.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Accommodation
  • Tour
• DAY 12

  Depart to the airport to fly back home

  After breakfast in the hotel, drive to Nairobi. Transfer to the airport in time for your flight back home.

  What's included?

  • Breakfast
  • Transfer