"Masai Mara" Masai Mara Game Reserve by Suet

The best time to come to the Mara is in August when the herds are migrating. I say *herds*. This does not convey the idea of the millions of animals trekking through the Mara, eating their way on to more fertile grounds, giving birth on the way and the sheer size of the whole thing.

Imagine you are in your car, you can see 360o all around you and as far as you can see and in every direction, there are millions of widlebeeste, zebra, topi, hartebeeste, grant's and thomson's gazelles. Every few feet there is an animal grazing.

In addition to this are the smaller animals, jackals, tortoises, monitor lizards, mongoose, snakes, lizards, insects, chameleons, geckos, porcupines, civet cats, bush babies not to mention the birds.

The larger animals include rhino, elephant, cape buffalo, giraffe, hyena as well as the big cats, lion, cheetah, leopard.

The first time I realised my place in the Universe was in the Mara. Sitting in the dark, staring up at the stars, seeing the arm of our galaxy which we call The Milky Way, listening to the lions roar... it all slotted into place.

Cheetah ready to pounce

We spent a delightful half an hour watching this group of three cheetahs pouncing chasing and playing. The speed and grace with which these animals move is legendary. The mother cheetah will often give their cubs a live Thompson's fawn to practice with, to trip, chase and mock kill as part of their very necessary development in the art of hunting.

Cheetahs rarely hold on to their kills, they are either chased off by hyena or lion, bullied by jackal or hounded out by vultures. When with cubs, they seem to be on the edge of starvation as it takes tremendous energy to run prey down when pregnant and they rarely get to keep the kill.

View of the seemingly endless Mara

Sadly it is not so. There are boundaries of this massive reserve but you could imagine that all of this area of Africa was once like this for the early explorers. Walking across this huge grassland and seeing the animals for the first time as a European must have been breathtaking. I still find it so on every visit. Ever changing, ever vast, ever free and clean.

• Pros:Free clean and a fantastic experience
• Cons:Far too small considering the size of Africa
• In a nutshell:You must go at least once in your lifetime