1. Kruger National Park – South Africa
Perhaps this game reserve needs no introduction. Some of the most amazing African wildlife videos and pictures come from Kruger, for example the pictures of a leopard killing a crocodile and the battle at kruger video (below).

Kruger is the largest game reserve in South Africa, and is distinguished for its high animal density, and the great diversity of animals, birds, and plant life. All the big five game (elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard) are present in large numbers in the park. No other African game reserve has as many mammal species as Kruger.

The birdwatching experience in Kruger is just as superb, with over 500 resident and migrant bird species found there.

Kruger national park is ideal for self-drive safaris owing to a good road network. Adventure travel enthusiasts find the far North part of Kruger quite alluring being very wild and also very difficult to access. There are a number of small private game reserves along the edges of Kruger, each providing equally rewarding wildlife tours.

Arguably, no other game park in Africa offers you that total wildlife safari experience you find at Kruger. More information about Kruger and the neighbouring reserves are available on this site.

2. Masai Mara National Reserve – Kenya
Again, no introduction needed for this game reserve. The spectacular great wildebeest migration, dubbed as the most impressive event of the natural world, has given the Masai Mara game reserve an international appeal that other parks must envy.

During the migration, millions of wildebeests plus hundreds of thousands of zebras and other ungulates move into the Mara from Serengeti national park in Tanzania, in search of water and pasture. Several lions and other predators follow these migrating herbivores as they present easy prey. Some of the most dramatic moments of the migration happen during the crossing the Mara river.

Yet, with or without the migration, the Mara is still a must-visit destination. The park has a very high animal population, including all the big five. Besides the wildebeest, the lions and the other big cats are the other star attractions of the Mara. In a nutshell, the Mara is as good a safari destination as Kruger.

3. South Luangwa National Park – Zambia
The Luangwa valley in Zambia is one largely unexplored wildlife destination with an astonishingly high animal density. This remote valley is located far from any major city, thus does not have very many visitors. Yet the valley contains four pristine national parks, the most outstanding being the South Luangwa national park.

Walking safaris in Africa cannot be any better than what you experience in South Luangwa. The safari experience here can only be termed as the greatest in Africa. Visitors get to see many animals especially around the Luangwa river and its oxbow lagoons. Being a bit off the beaten track, the park is not very “touristy” or congested. The tour guides are some of the best you can find in Africa.

Among the animals you will see in South Luangwa are four of the big five (big five minus the rhino), cheetahs, many other predators, hippos, crocodiles, and many more. The thornicroft’s giraffe is only found here, and nowhere else in Africa. The elephant herds in the park are exceptionally large, sometimes numbering as many as 70. South Luangwa is also regarded as the best place in Africa to see the very elusive leopard.

4. Etosha National Park – Namibia
Despite being situated in arid conditions (in the Namib desert), Etosha deserves its position as one of Africa’s finest wildlife sanctuaries. Etosha national park is home to over 110 mammal species, an almost equal number of reptile species, and 340+ bird species.

This magnificent game park also has one of the highest population of the black rhino in Africa. Other animals present on Etosha include elephants, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and several rare species of Southern Africa antelopes.

The opportunity for wildlife photography Etosha provides is incomparable to any other park. The photo below, plus others found on blogoncherry blog attest to this fact.

Etosha has a very good road network making it perfectly suitable for self-drive wildlife safaris.

5. Selous Game Reserve – Tanzania
This top five list could not be complete without at least one national park or game reserve in Tanzania. There are several fine parks and reserves in the country but I think Selous, in Tanzania’s southern safari circuit takes top position.

Selous game reserve is the biggest game reserve in Tanzania and also in Africa. One similarity between Etosha and South Luangwa is that they are among the few remaining untouched wilderness in Africa. Like in South Luangwa, visitors to Selous can go for guided walking safaris within the reserve.

Selous has a very high animal concentration, especially along the Rufiji river banks. During the dry season, the Rufiji river is a magnet for many plains game, plus opportunistic predators preying on these easy targets.

One of Selous’ many reputations is in having the highest population of african wild dogs (pictured below: source wikimedia commons).

Other Parks and Reserves
This post was about the top five. However, there are several other game reserves worth mentioning. Depending on the criteria used to evaluate, some of them may even replace the above mentioned in the top five:

• Chobe national park in Botswana
• Ngorongoro conservation area in Tanzania
• Okavango Delta, in Botswana

Recommended African Safari Packages Booking
Visit the Africa guide Africa holiday packages to select a safari of your choice, including to some of the above destinations.

In this blog post, I highlight some of the adventure activities you can undertake during your vacation in Africa. You can do some of these activities as an add-on to a typical vacation package. Others however need more time, meaning that you will have to take them as a stand-alone package.

• Swimming with Sharks
Forget about the movie with a similar title, I mean literally swimming with the sharks. Well…not so literally, at least you will be in a “protective” cage.

The Great White Shark: You can "swim" alongside this fierce predator

You cannot have a more adrenaline-filled experience with the sharks than in the “great white shark capital” itself – the region around Dyer Island and Gansbaai in South Africa. The other places you can have similar adventures include False Bay and Mossel Bay, not so far away from Cape Town.

• Sky Diving
If you find it thrilling to throw yourself out of a mechanically sound airplane at over 7000 ft above the ground, then you will surely find lots of fun in South Africa or Kenya. South Africa obviously has the wider choice of sky diving clubs and drop zones. Its scenery and weather are also great and should therefore make for exhilarating jumps.

Though Kenya has fewer skydiving opportunities, the annual Diani boogie has gained a lot of popularity, attracting more than 100 international skydivers every year. Experienced skydivers particularly enjoy the long free fall time (of up to 60 seconds) made possible by the warm tropical updrafts. If you have no previous skydiving experience, you can opt for a tandem fall, where you are tied to an accomplished diver as he takes the free fall. Visit the official website of Skydive Kenya to book your place in the next Diani international boogie.

• Endurance Trekking – Fish River Canyon
We have very many great treks and hikes in Africa, among them the Simien mountains in Ethiopia, Mt Elgon in Uganda, and the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa. Then we have what I consider the ultimate hiking trail – the Fish river canyon in Namibia. Ian Belcher, a reporter with the guardian.co.uk calls it “the hottest walk on earth“.

The trek is so hard that you are required to present a medical certificate proving that you are medically fit before you attempt the hike. You also have to be of above average fitness levels. Once you are inside the canyon, nobody can evacuate you, you have to walk your way out. Fortunately, there are other easier guided treks near the canyon for those not up to the task.

• Desert Expeditions

Giant sand dune at Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert

Imagine standing in the middle of a sea of sand, and the only land features you see around you are massive sand dunes. No trees, no rivers, no buildings, nothing at all. Well, if you fancy such a scene, you should one day take an excursion deep into one of Africa’s deserts. Sahara desert, being the largest desert in Africa, would be a good start.

The hot deserts of Africa are however harsh and dangerous environments. On your own, you cannot venture too deep without putting your life at the risk. Fortunately, you can have a moderately safe desert adventure formally organized through a tour operator. Some of the popular ones include camel treks into the sahara, quad biking in the kalahari, and excursions to the giant sand dunes at Sossuvlei in the Namib desert.

• Mountain Climbing

Mt Kilimanjaro is the most obvious choice for mountain climbing in Africa. Despite being Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro is considered easy and mostly non-technical. So much that anyone of average fitness can make it to Uhuru peak (the highest peak) without any special equipment. But do not be deceived, it is no walk in the park. You can read my personal experience in Kilimanjaro to get an insight of how easy/hard it is.

There are several routes up the mountain. Some, especially the Umbwe route, are more difficult than others. But if you want a really technical climb in Mt Kilimanjaro, you can attempt the “dangerous” and rarely attempted Mawenzi peak. You’d need a special permit, and rock climbing/ice climbing equipment for this.

Other mountains in Africa that you may consider climbing are Mt Kenya in Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains (Uganda), Mt Meru (Tanzania), the Atlas mountains (North Africa) and the Simien mountains (Ethiopia). Mt Kenya is the second tallest mountain in Africa, and is generally more technical to climb than Kilimanjaro due to its rugged terrain. You can trek all the way up to Lenana point (altitude 4985 meters), but you’d have to be a technical climber to get get to the other peaks – Batian (5199 meters) and Nelion (5188 meters).

• Bungee Jumping at the Bloukrans Bungee
If you’re travelling from outside of Africa, it would of course make no sense to come all the way to Africa just to bungy jump. But when you come to South Africa, jumping from the Bloukrans bridge may be a great way to get an adrenaline rush after your safari.

The Bloukrans bungee is not just another bungee; It is the world’s highest commercially operated bungee jump. It stands at 216 meters above the Bloukrans river.

• Plus many more
You are not limited to the adventure activities I have mentioned above. There plenty of other “normal” and extraordinary adventure options for you including:

• Scuba Diving
• Snorkelling (Egypt, Mozambique, Zanzibar, Mauritius)
• Abseilling (Table Mountain in Cape Town)
• White Water Rafting (Kenya, South Africa, Zambia)
• Overland trips from Cairo to Cape Town or vice versa
• etc.

Help with Africa Adventure Safari Booking
Click here for tours & safaris in Africa offered by the Africa Guide. Africa Guide has a very wide selection of African safari packages, among them adventure safaris.

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).

Even when not crossing the Mara or Grumeti rivers, the wildebeest are in almost constant movement within the Serengeti plains in Tanzania, with their migration pattern largely dependent on the rains and pasture availability. The migration therefore has no real beginning or end, the wildebeests start their unending pilgrimage the moment they are born.

What many people may not know is that, besides the wildebeest migration, there are other similarly spectacular sights involving wild animals in Africa. The bat migration in Zambia, and the Ruaha wildlife spectacle in Tanzania are some of these.

Zambia’s Mass Bat Migration

Every year in the October-December period, millions of straw-colored fruit bats move in mass through the Kansaka national park in Zambia. People who have witnessed this event regard it as one of the greatest wildlife spectacles in the world. Twice a day, at dawn and at dusk, the “flying foxes” blacken the skies as they fly to or from their night-time feasting on the seasonal fruits in Kasanka. During the day, the bats roost on every available tree in the forest, in itself an amazing sight to behold. Considering that Kasanka national park is not a very well-known wildlife destination, it is perhaps no surprise that such an astonishing event can remain almost unknown. One traveller who witnessed the migration first-hand describes it in the Wanderlust travel website.

The Ruaha wildlife spectacle

The national parks and game reserves in Tanzania’s southern safari circuit are largely unexplored, in comparison to those in the northern safari circuit. Probably because they are less accessible, these parks remain unchanged for centuries, and are wildlife havens.

Ruaha national park is one such park. It derives its name from the great Ruaha river, the site at which one of the most interesting wildlife drama takes place. Generally, the park is arid and very dry throughout the year. It is however driest from May to December, during which period all animals in the park are drawn to the banks of Ruaha river. With all these animals together, what unfolds right at the river banks is really dramatic: animals courting and mating, predators hunting down their prey, animals fighting, etc. Nowhere else in Africa will you get such a wildlife safari experience.

Ruaha national park has a lot more to write about. I will probably write a post about it in the near future.

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”.

All the pyramids are situated west of river nile, mostly in groups of several pyramids. While the Giza pyramids, not very far from Cairo, attract many visitors to Egypt due to their massive size, there are other pyramids in other locations with even richer culture and heritage. Other pyramid sites include:

• Abu Rawash
• Abu Sir
• Dahshur
• el-Lahun
• Hawara
• Mazghuna
• Lisht
• Meidum
• Saqqara
• Zawyet el-Aryan