Safari meaning ‘journey’ in Swahili, stirs up images of a savanna landscape teeming with wildlife, relaxing outside ones tent while being served a sun-downer around a crackling fire, watching elephants peacefully meander with Mt. Kilimanjaro as the backdrop, meeting Maasai warriors along the dirt track and much, much more. Let us take you there…
We offer you the opportunity to visit the Africa, people only think of in their dreams. In conjunction with our hand selected destinations and hosts we reveal to you a side of East Africa that the majority do not even know still exists. With private access into many areas and destinations, we can offer an insight into the authentic East Africa.
Allow us to take you to our favorite undiscovered private destinations where you’ll experience fantastic ‘forever memories’.
Osero Safaris is committed to empowering and working with local communities in avenues that help to improve their standard of living while...
Our goal is to tailor the safari to your specific interests, travel schedule, local wildlife concentrations, and seasonal weather patterns. As our private guests, we will be happy to alter and customize the itinerary once we’ve identified your preferences and wishes.
Osero Safaris has put together a handful of itineraries that allow you to experience a diversity of landscapes, wildlife, activities and cultures while staying in luxurious and exclusive camps.
Click on links to the left for your desired safari.
Please email us your initial requirements and we will promptly reply to confirm the price and availability.
Let us take you to the famous Maasai Mara to see the planet’s greatest animal migration and a place named by the BBC as one of the “50 Places to See Before You Die”.
The Migration is a natural cycle that occurs each year where well over a 1 million wildebeest, calve in the Serengeti and then migrate to greener pastures in the Maasai Mara. This migration is the last great epic of life and death. Of all the calves born in the Serengeti, two out of three will never return from their first migration. The thundering of hooves and grunts from the moving seemingly endless black mass are heard from miles away. These sights and sounds of the approaching herd are an experience never forgotten.
The Maasai Mara Reserve, located in southwestern Kenya, is one of the only places in Africa that yet show wildlife concentrations evoking the days of the great white hunters, when the whole East Africa was a free and wild hunting ground. Today abundant wildlife still wanders about through the 1500 square kilometer protected area and also in the so-called dispersal area, north and east of the reserve, as well as in the adjoining Loita Plains and Hills, and further into the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania. All of it comprises the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, a 25,000 km 2 tract of ‘wild’ Africa.
Wildlife movements in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem are highly conditioned by climate. The vast plains of Serengeti, which allow a wide dispersion of the large herbivore herds, receive seasonal precipitations that are not enough to support an all-year-round provision of forage. The wettest area of the ecosystem is the Maasai Mara region, blessed by rains from November through June, with frequent storms throughout the year and the permanent water source of the Mara River. As the dry season in the Serengeti approaches and the grass dwindles, the animals slowly mass into a huge single herd. The scent of rain to the North is the spark that triggers the great migration. It begins to draw the herd throughout July, and soon the planet's greatest animal migration is underway. Each year, up to 1.5 million wildebeest (or white-bearded gnu), 250,000 Burchell's zebra and half a million Thomson’s gazelle trek through the Serengeti-Mara complex along a cyclic march that covers annually some 1,800 miles.
When and where does the migration start? Strictly, the migration has not a start nor an end, each wildebeest's life in the Serengeti-Mara is a constant pilgrimage that is never over until the animal dies. Thus, the only beginning to consider is birth. During the wet season, Serengeti is a nice place to live in. Grass abounds on the southern plains and in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, where the animals find a safe and sound place to graze and drop their calves. From late January to mid-March, along a six week period, 400,000 newborn wildebeests see their first light. Many are grabbed by jackals and hyena early after birth, survivors have little time to strengthen their legs, since the trek starts in April. By then, the rains are over in southern Serengeti and the plains have dried up. The great herds then gather and face the long march northwards and westwards.
The procession attracts a large following of vicious carnivores. The Maasai Mara during this time attracts probably the largest congregation of big cats in Africa. Thousands of weak or ill animals will end up devoured during the trek, and only one out of three calves will ever see the Serengeti again. The thrill of leaving camp at dawn, in search of big cats is an experience that is difficult to repeat.
In late May, the herds leave the Western Corridor to take the northern Serengeti plains and woodlands, where they exhaust the grass and continue to move northward smelling the rains that are falling in the Maasai Mara. The fresh, tender and mineral-rich pastures are what the wildebeest procession are after, an event which usually starts in late June to early July. The herds coming from the south meet here another migratory group, the resident wildebeest herds of the Mara region. These animals, adding up to 100,000, reside in the Loita Plains and Hills, northeast of the Mara, until the dry season brings the tougher days and it is time to seek the evergreen Mara basin.
Throughout the month of July, the herds cross the Sand River, a mostly dry tributary of the Mara which roughly follows the boundary line between Kenya and Tanzania. The trek follows westward, leading the herds to face the major challenge along their quest, crossing the Mara river and frequently also its tributary, the Talek. By then, the rains at the Mau Escarpment, where the Mara rises, have fed the stream to its highest levels. The rivers and banks are populated with massive crocodiles awaiting their annual banquet.
The operation of fording the river is the most precarious along the migration, and as such seems to plunge the wildebeest in a state of anxiety that only relieves when the whole herd has crossed. It is an amazing experience to observe the highly social and gregarious behavior of these animals, resembling more a flock for its coordinated movements. The ones in front walk along the left (eastern) bank of the Mara looking for a suitable point to cross. The herds gather at the suitable points and wander around nervously, their grunts sounding loud in the air. Eventually, one animal takes the lead and approaches the rim, scanning the opposite edge to analyze if any danger awaits. When it finally dives into the stream the rest of the herd follows. As the rearguard continues to push the pace builds to a frantic race that ends up with animals being trampled to death.
During the ford, if a single animal detects any danger, it will jump back pulling the rest of the herd to a general retreat that sometimes brings panic and triggers a crazy stampede. When the line breaks, the animals that have successfully crossed will not follow their trek until the whole herd has passed: they will remain at the opposite bank, grunting at their mates as if encouraging them to cross. Thousands of wildebeest and zebra are torn apart by crocodiles or trampled by their mates. The crossing, as determined by the wildebeest's survival instinct, ironically brings many of them to an end. Vultures and marabou storks become then permanent dwellers of the river banks where carcasses decay. The disgusting massacre landscape, that literally stains in red the chocolate waters, is nothing but one more step in the circle of nature, actually it is not a scene of death but one of life, since the abundance of meat feeds many species and controls the herbivores' populations.
The crossings repeat over and over, and the survivors graze peacefully on the Mara Triangle grasslands unless disturbed by the early-morning and late-evening hunts of lion and cheetah, the latter preying on the calves. At night there is an additional threat, hyenas, which despite their fame of carrion-seekers, gather in groups to siege the herds, frequently losing their prey to lions after the sunrise.
From July to October, the image of the wildebeest columns traversing the Maasai Mara plains is one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring scenes. The large herds populate the grasslands and any lookout conveys the superb display of the lines crisscrossing the landscape in different directions. The choreography is splendid when seen from above, from one of the balloons that fly with the first morning light.
By October, the rains are heading south back to Serengeti. This is when the pace of the march reverses, bringing the herds to face once more the quest for the southern grasslands. The rite of fording the river is again part of nature's call. In the last days of October, the migration is on to the vast plains of southern Serengeti, where a new generation of calves will be born to start the cycle of life all over again.
