The Maasai Mara National Park

The Maasai Mara National Park is about 1,600 square kilometers in size. Rumor has it that it is the richest of Kenya’s game parks in terms of the flora and fauna found in the park. There is the grass land, dense bush, thickets forests and not to forget the ever permanent Mara river. As is common with many game reserves in the country, animals have no respect for boundaries with many cris – crossing the Mara and Serengeti at pleasure. Many tourists both local and foreign confess that they that it is while in the Mara that they feel that they are really in the country.
It is a fine country for the big five and the lions as well. Amongst the animals in the park that live with the big five is the ‘Topi’ whose population is around 6,000 animals, a wide variety of birds who form a symbiotic relationship with the big animals. The birds eat the parasitic insects on the backs of buffaloes and elephants that in turn provide shelter to them against wild creatures who consider the birds a delicacy. Also found are gazelles, zebras, giraffes and snakes that complete on gigantic food chain in the Mara – Serengeti ecosystem. The Mara River that runs across the park is a permanent river that is relied upon heavily by the animals in the dry season when the other streams have dried up. Today the park is a great tourist destination especially since the year 2008 when a prominent person in the world suggested that the wildebeest migration should be considered the eighth wonder of the modern world.
The Mara has more than 200 lodges and restaurants with more springing up conveniently during the migration and hundreds of tour operators in the region. The sight is comparable to Biashara street in Nairobi where after every baby shop there is a baby shop but this time round, it is after every lodge in the Mara there is another lodge.
Other than wildlife there are other sights such as the numerous trees species for the biologists and agriculturists. It is a sight to be hold and one should definitely make it a point to visit the park at least once in their life time.