Africa Travel Information

The Great Wildebeest Migration

Besides several other good reasons, the Masai Mara game reserve remains the most preferred wildlife safari destination in Kenya chiefly because of the great wildebeest migration. This well-documented and dramatic natural event involves over one million wildebeest accompanied by a few other antelopes and hundreds of thousands of zebras.

Wildebeest crossing a river during the great migration. Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Connochaetes_taurinus_-Wildebeest_crossing_river_-East_Africa.jpg).

Some of the most thrilling moments of the migration are when the animals cross the crocodile-infested Mara river. These are the moments most tourists hope to witness when they book their safari to the Mara around July and August. Unfortunately, the migration is a very spontaneous event and therefore it is very hard to precisely predict when the herds will arrive from Serengeti national. Sometimes they cross into the Mara as early as late June, other times as late as September. This year (2009), the first crossing was witnessed in the first week of July (see this news article).

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The pyramids at Giza, Egypt. Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org

Arguably, nothing today is more symbolic of the engineering prowess of the ancient Egyptians than the pyramids. Most of these pyramid-shaped structures are believed to have been constructed between 3000 BC and around 1800 BC, a period between the old and middle kingdoms of ancient Egypt. Over 100 pyramids still survive today, though many more certainly existed before. It is believed that most pyramids were constructed as tombs for the Pharaohs and other members of the royalty.

The pyramids at Giza are the most known. The largest of these, the pyramid of Khufu (popularly known as the great pyramid of Giza), is the only remaining member of the “Seven wonders of the ancient world”. Read the rest of this entry »