We often get to see the photos or videos from these famous safaris, however I always wondered how they were really like. I just couldn´t imagine how it was in practice, if you really were in the middle of nowhere, how close you can be from the animals, etc. So I´m sharing here the basics of my experience 😉

Games: A typical safari is organized by “game drives”, which is nothing but the time you spend driving from your camp site / lodge to the wilderness in search for animals. In full day safaris there are normally 2 games: The first one early in the morning, this is usually the most popular game viewing time because at this time the temperature is low, thus providing a favorable atmosphere both for the animals and the visitors. The second drive is in the afternoon before it gets dark. In the middle of the day it can get really hot and the animals also try to find some shelter wherever possible, so the activity is considerably less. It´s also a nice time to arrange lunch either in your accomodation if you are not so far away, or having lunch in designated places for that. It really depends on your safari company, how the game is going and the reserve you are in, but fair assumption is you will be driving for several hours twice a day. Most of my days started approximately at 6 am and ended around 6-7 pm. (if nothing goes wrong.. yeap I had some stories there too)

Hot air ballon ride In big places like the Masai Mara reserve, it´s popular to ride a hot air balloon. I did this for the first time in my life in the Masai Mara (not bad, huh?) and do I recommend it? ABSOLUTELY! (not cheap though..)

This is a great way to have an even broader perspective of the inmessity of the place, to see all those thousands of animals and at some point only little dots from the distance. If you are lucky like me you can see some hunting and animal activity from the sky. We were a bit far already but close enough to notice many animals were running in 2 different directions as they were being hunted by hyenas! As we were on the ballon it´s not like we could park in the sky to see the end of it 😉 so we kept moving but it was very evident what was happening.

Jeep: The stereotype is you will be in a fancy jeep, and you probably will but there are also more budget vehicles like the ones I used. It is very common to adapt a normal van so that it opens the roof and there you go! You can go on safari 😉 In the Kenyan part of the safari I was travelling with 2 other guys plus the driver and we had plenty of space to look in any direction. Whenever there were animals to see I was standing most of the time on the seats with an open view from the very well adapted car.

Accomodation: I had it all! and I have good news. If you are worried about the accomodation and you want high-end or a fancy place to stay and still enjoy the African wildlife, be sure you will find very luxurious places to stay with everything you possibly need, pools and wifi. At least Kenya is so touristy from this perspective that you will find it, it will not be cheap naturally but I´m saying it´s totally possible. The same goes for more budged minded people, the cheapest option you can find is camping in the designated places. There are many accomodations in between, some of those are camps in the middle of the park but really luxurious considering where you are.

Unfortunately for me, I had some hickups along the way 😉 and well everything turned out fine but in some amazing places that were really great I arrived very late and I couldn´t really enjoy my evening and comfortable night.. but forgetting that for a minute, my safari company arranged a good variation of some luxury places, some mid-range lodges and just a couple of more modest places. Some of my experience below.

When things get complicated 😉

Well.. no real safari is complete without some technical difficulties on the park roads 😉 I have no other way to describe it that… it is nature in the end. You can drive many kilometers and explore the park, but rightly so it´s not exactly a highway. Retrospectively this is super funny for me, but you can imagine when I was there and especially when I was anxious to get intot the Masai Mara reserve for the first ever, it was a bit less fun. But today it´s hilarious!

That was the first time our kenyan driver told us “Hakuna Matata” and he looked totally chilled saying things would work out. I was freaking out hehe, but as you see in the photo after some time we got help from Masai people in both cases, yes.. In kenya this happened to us 3 times if I recall correctly, in one of those I could not leave the car as we were in the middle of the water, other cars couldn´t cross either because of us so I´m sure I ended up in some other tourist´s photos hehe..

So, if you have been on safari and everything went smoothly, you missed the real experience 😉 😉