oldubai

Hello!
We have booked a safari with African Horizons next week in Kenya.
We´re hosting at David Livingstone Safari Resort in (outside)Masai Mara.
Do someone know how long does it take to get Mara from David Livingstone?
Thanks! Gracias
Carlos
Madrid- Spain

Patty

Guestimate - 1.5 hours to one of the western side gates if game viewing along the way.

Nyamera

Hi Carlos,

There’s a lot of confusion over Livingstone on a Spanish Kenya forum. People are worried that they will not see the migration and on an earlier version of the forum there were people who had stayed at Livingstone and after their trip discovered they had not even entered the national reserve. I’d say there shouldn’t be a problem, especially if full day game drives are included.
Now I have a suspicion that a Spanish lady who stayed at Livingstone recently never entered through a Mara park gate. She wrote that she had seen gates with rangers at Nakuru and Amboseli, but when coming by road to the Mara she was told that an entrance between two big electric fences was “where the Mara began” and that the fences were there to “keep the animals in and the poachers out”. It was obviously untrue. Does anyone know what it could have been? I’ve asked some questions like if they “exited the reserve” to go to Livingstone and am waiting for a reply. This lady did see big herds of wildebeest that might have been the Loita herds on their way south to the Maasai Mara NR.

Patty

Nyamera,
I don't recall seeing "two big electric" fences either on my way to Kicheche from Narok or from Kicheche to the reserve. If arriving by road, there's a small gate where a vehicle fee is collected in order to access this western side road before you get to any of the camps, but I don't recall seeing big electric fences here. The fee is supposed to go toward the maintenance of this road.

Did you ask her how far the big electric fences were from Livingstone? Could the electric fences be for this lodge? I'm puzzled

Nyamera

Patty,
The fence was an hour or so before Livingstone and I think Livingstone is unfenced. Maybe it was some other lodge, but fenced lodges don’t usually have BIG fences. I can only think of some reforestation project or some secret military “set-up”…
Anyway, she has replied now and she doesn’t know and doesn’t care if Livingstone is inside or outside the reserve, but Amboseli is fenced, guarded by the military and inside there’s a Rasta Maasai who looks like a Porto Rican. I don’t think I’ll get more information … And I don’t think she ever entered the reserve. Another poster, who is leaving soon, wants to know how to be sure he’s taken inside the Mara.
Does anyone have pictures of Oloololo and Musiara gates?

Patty

"Amboseli is fenced, guarded by the military and inside there’s a Rasta Maasai who looks like a Porto Rican"

Sounds like very reliable info to me

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of Oloololo gate. You drive through a portal like entrance. There's a place to pay your fees, maps of the Mara are on display, and there are restrooms. This side is managed by the Mara Conservancy so there should be some conservancy literature available. If the poster has a GPS, I can email him the coordinates for this gate.

Oh I just found a pic on webshots! http://community.webshots.com/photo/...87056970AuUtjO

Nyamera

Patty,
=D> =D> =D>
I’ll ask him is he has a GPS – just in case there’s a fake Oloololo gate somewhere.

Patty

Kristina was kind enough to email me links to her Oloololo gate pics just now.

http://67.171.25.95/2006/Kenya/Olonana2/jvn001.htm

http://67.171.25.95/2006/Kenya/Olonana2/jvn002.htm

climbhighsleeplow

Here is my picture of Oloololo Gate.

http://www.go-safari.com/Masai%20Mara/oloologate.jpg

I doubt that Livingstone will use Oloololo Gate. To do so they have to drive past a big large town before crossing the Mara to drive behind Olonana and Kichwa to the gate. Guests won't like that! They will opt for Talek or even Musiara.

There are no fences near the Mara gates in the east!

Livingstone IMO is fenced at the entrance but not on the Mara River side. I think the fence has more to do with keeping thieves out than animals!

Patty

Eben,
Wouldn't it take longer to get to Talek from Livingstone?

climbhighsleeplow

Two corrections:

Livingstone is fenced even on the river side as one can see in this pic:
http://www.go-safari.com/Masai%20Mara/Livingstone6.jpg

The Masai Mara gates in the West are just gates with no fences nearby.

In the East, the Sekenani gate is rather comprehensive and even the Oloolaimutia Gate looks a bit daunting niut no serious fencing.

The biggest fences I've seen have been around Livingstone camp.

Patty, yes the drive towards Talek will be 2 hours or more. But they can enter south of my friends Naurori's manyatta - probably the most direct route if they have their reserve tickets in hand.

kimburu

Nyamera... More of those Spanish posts please! Can you do a regular feature?

santharamhari

Having seen the title of the thread, i assumed Livingstone, Zambia.

Guess, more to learn about Africa every day.

Hari

oldubai

Patty, Nyamera, thank you very much for your information.
Fortunately, we´re staying there two full days, so I hope to go in the park.
Besides, we´ll try to change our accomodation altough We konw it´s a bit later.

About spanish confusion over Livingstone, I think that there are only a few tour operators for travelling to Kenya, and they usually offer closed packages wich includes a few lodges in Mara (Serena, Sopa, Livingstone), and when you read the brocures about it,you don´t find anything about distances from lodges to parks.

Nyamera

Thanks Patty, Eben and Kristina. And thanks Kimburu for the encouragement.

Carlos, do you visit La Charca? Another Carlos there says that Livingstone has the best game viewing in the Mara and that he saw more predators than people who were staying at camps inside the reserve saw. On the other hand, Kerikeri, who was staying at Mara Safari Club in June, saw only “boring” - animals until entering the reserve.
Now I’ve understood that Iberojet has two or three lodges for each park in their brochure and that costumers are told which lodges they’ve been assigned <b>AFTER</b> booking!
Though African Horizons isn’t a Spanish company.
Safari njema!

oldubai

Jambo Nyamera
No,I know the webpage, but I haven´t visited it recently.
At this point we´re trying to change our lodge in Mara. Even African Horizons (yes, we prefered to book directly with a kenyan operator) has told us there are a lot of interesting game next to the lodge, but we don´t want to risk.
Asante sana! Muchas gracias

Nyamera

Jambo Oldubai,
La Charca, as has happened before, was down for a couple of months, but now – thanks to the amazing one-man-Editor who doesn’t know anything about computers - it’s back in a new improved version. As you know English you’ll get more accurate information here – most of the time. Though the charqueros do need to hear the message that you can go to Kenya without Iberojet, El Corte Ingl&eacute;s, Kuoni etc and sometimes there are some really interesting discussions.

Kiwayu

Having recently been to the Mara and visiting 5 different lodges this is my experience. We arrived at Sopa Lodge to be welcomed by nobody. A normal lodge lunch followed by a game less afternoon game drive. Two nights here was not worth our money, the next stop was Serena which was very nice but there was virtually no game in the area except a few elephants. Good food but okay service was the order of the day. Very nice rooms. Thereafter our next stop was the tatty Kichwa tembo which had plenty of elephants around, lots of zebra and some very nice guides but the lodge was tired and not friendly. From Kichwa we went north through a very bad road to David Livingstone. The road was really bad because it has pissed the night before for 5 hours but our arrival at Livingstone was fantastic. We were met by a Swiss manager and Masai Dancers followed by probably the best lunch in all of Mara. Everything was home made and the hippos over 200 of them in the river outside the dining terrace gave us great company. Our Afternoon game drive was superb, well guided and we saw Leopard, almost 26 Lion and lots of Elephant. The lodge was very quiet so we had dinner around a big table of a seven course luxury meal. Our game drive experience here was the best as we did not have to go through 40 minibuses like at Simba Lodge and Sopa Lodge but had the whole place to ourselves. I come to the conclusion that the big game as no boundaries