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 Tour the Serengeti plains... This is the natural game park of legends and dreams. The Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, East Africa is 14,763km², but there are no fences and the actual range stretches way past the borders, into Kenya’s Masai Mara, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the Maswa Game Reserve in the south-west, the Grumeti and Ikorongo Controlled Areas in the west and the Western Corridor, stretching almost to the shores of Lake Victoria.
You could easily reduce the Serengeti park to a series of numbers: over 1,3-million wildebeest, 200,000 zebra, 1,500 lions, 1,000 elephants, 280,000 Thompson’s gazelles, 25,000 buffalo, 500 species of birds, 72,000 topi, 32,000 Grant’s gazelle, 8,500 giraffe, 10,000 eland. Simply put, at the right time of year, a Serengeti safari is East Africa’s most spectacular wildlife experience. Anyone who has ever been there at the height of the great migration will never forget it: day and night, it is an endless cacophony of grunting wildebeest, barking zebra, and the squeals of baby wildebeest being born and being hunted down by the ever-present predators. It is is one of the most photographed, and most exciting, wildlife spectacles on earth.
The Serengeti annual migration is a fickle thing and totally dependent on rainfall (and hence grass growth) patterns and impossible to predict. In a perfect world, the wildebeest, zebra and gazelle start migrating west and north in search of sweeter grazing from May through to July, moving from Seronera through the Western Corridor, then outside the park to the Grumeti, arriving in the Masai Mara in Kenya by late July through to early September. By October/November they are drifting back to Seronera, and spend the long rainy season in the Serengeti grasslands
If you have time and your own vehicle, don't just stick to the tourist routes as the real challenge of the Serengeti complex is the back tracks and bush camps, which package tourists almost never get to see. Check with the authorities about which routes are open, then head out from the Olduvai Gorge north to the Salei Plains, Angata Kiti, Nasera Rock and the Gol Mountains (for detailed route descriptions, get a copy of The Ngorongoro Conservation Area by Jeanette Hanby and David Bygott, available at the Manyara and Ngorongoro entrance gates). Be warned that this is expedition travel, and that you should be very experienced or have two vehicles. There is a back route into Lokiondo and the Gol Mountains via Lake Natron, which bypasses the park gates and does not enter the conservation area, thereby avoiding park fees. But this route is hazardous and should only be attempted with a local guide.
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