11-Day Kenya Buffalo Safari: The Wild Horns of Kenya

Karibu Kenya! On arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, your Gip Adventure representative will be waiting in the arrivals hall to welcome you and help with your luggage. After a short briefing you are driven to your hotel in Nairobi to check in, freshen up and rest after your flight.

Depending on your arrival time, the rest of the day is yours to relax. In the evening your guide will run through the safari ahead, answer your questions and make sure you have everything you need for an early start tomorrow. Dinner and overnight in Nairobi.

After breakfast, drive north from Nairobi through the tea and coffee country of the central highlands to the Aberdare Range, around 3 hours. Arrive in time for lunch at the base hotel, then continue up into Aberdare National Park, where misty montane and bamboo forest, deep ravines and tumbling waterfalls create a cool, green contrast to the savanna.

Tonight you stay at one of the park's famous tree lodges, built above a floodlit waterhole and salt lick. As darkness falls, settle in on the viewing decks and watch elephants, buffalo, bushbuck, giant forest hogs and perhaps even the elusive bongo or a leopard come to drink. Ask to be woken if something special appears during the night. Dinner and overnight in Aberdare National Park.

Buffalo are among the most regular visitors to the waterhole, often arriving in dark, mud-caked groups in the small hours, and their size seems even more impressive under the lights.

After an early breakfast overlooking the waterhole, descend from the Aberdares, perhaps stopping to see one of the park's waterfalls, and continue to Ol Pejeta Conservancy on the Laikipia plateau, a drive of around 2 hours with Mount Kenya ahead of you.

After lunch, enjoy an afternoon game drive on the conservancy, home to the largest population of black rhinos in East Africa as well as southern white rhinos, lions, elephants, leopards and large herds of buffalo. As the sun sets, watch the light turn gold on the slopes of Mount Kenya before returning for dinner and overnight at Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Spend a full day on the conservancy with morning and afternoon game drives. Visit the enclosure where the last two northern white rhinos on earth, both female, are guarded around the clock, and hear from the rangers about the extraordinary science and dedication being used to try to save their subspecies from extinction.

Later, stop at the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary, the only place in Kenya to see chimpanzees, before continuing across the plains in search of lions, cheetahs, elephants and the painted dogs that sometimes range across Laikipia. Return to your camp as the light fades over Mount Kenya. Dinner and overnight at Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

Ol Pejeta's open plains support large herds of buffalo, and your guide will show you how to read their mood, from the relaxed grazing of a breeding herd to the wary stare of an old bull.

After breakfast, leave Laikipia and drive west via Nyahururu, where you stop to see Thomson's Falls plunging into a forested gorge, before descending into the Great Rift Valley to Lake Nakuru National Park, a journey of around 4 hours.

After lunch, set out on an afternoon game drive in this compact, fenced park on the shore of a Rift Valley soda lake. Lake Nakuru is home to more than 100 black and white rhinos and the endangered Rothschild's giraffe, while flamingos and pelicans gather along the shoreline and leopards hide in the yellow fever-tree forest. Dinner and overnight at Lake Nakuru.

After an early breakfast, and perhaps a final short game drive along the lakeshore, leave Lake Nakuru and drive south-west through Narok, the last town before the Mara, to the Masai Mara National Reserve, around 5–6 hours. The scenery opens up as you go, with Maasai herders and their cattle on the rolling plains.

Arrive at your camp in time for lunch, then head out on an afternoon game drive across the spotted plains that give the Mara its name. Lions, elephants, giraffes, topis and herds of plains game are everywhere, and the golden late-afternoon light is the perfect introduction to Kenya's most celebrated reserve. Dinner and overnight in the Masai Mara.

Spend the day following the Mara's great buffalo herds, which can number in the hundreds on the open grassland and around the marshes. Watch how they move as one, bunching together with the calves at the centre when lions are near, and listen to your guide explain why the old bulls, the dagga boys, are so feared by hunters and guides alike.

The Mara is one of the few places where you may witness the age-old contest between lions and buffalo, a battle that can last for hours. With a picnic lunch on board, stay out on the plains for the whole day, watching elephants, giraffes, topis and cheetahs along the way. Dinner and overnight in the Masai Mara.

Spend a full day exploring the Masai Mara with a picnic lunch, so you can travel further and stay out with the animals when the action unfolds. The reserve borders Tanzania's Serengeti and forms the northern part of the same great ecosystem, and from around July to October it hosts the Great Wildebeest Migration, when over a million wildebeest, zebras and gazelles graze its plains.

If the herds are here, your guide will head for the Mara River in the hope of witnessing a crossing, as wildebeest plunge into the water past waiting Nile crocodiles. At any time of year, the Mara is a Big Five haven, with lions, leopards, cheetahs, elephants and buffalo all regularly seen. Dinner and overnight in the Masai Mara.

After a final morning game drive in the Masai Mara and breakfast at camp, drive back through Narok and down into the Great Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha, a journey of around 5 hours with a lunch stop on the way.

Arrive in the afternoon and take time to unwind after your days on the plains. Stroll through the acacia-shaded grounds of your lodge, where colobus monkeys, waterbuck and even giraffes often wander, and listen for the haunting cry of the African fish eagle over the water as the sun sets behind the Mau. Dinner and overnight at Lake Naivasha.

Begin the day with a boat safari on Lake Naivasha, whose name comes from the Maasai word Nai'posha, meaning rough water. Drift past hippos and papyrus beds as fish eagles swoop over the water, then step ashore on Crescent Island for a guided walk among giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and waterbuck, one of the few places in Kenya where you can walk freely among the animals.

In the afternoon, visit Hell's Gate National Park, a dramatic landscape of red cliffs, rock towers and steaming geothermal vents, where buffalo, zebras and gazelles graze and you can explore on foot or by bicycle. Walk into the gorge with a local guide before returning to your lodge for dinner and overnight at Lake Naivasha.

Enjoy a relaxed breakfast overlooking the lake, with a final chance to watch the birdlife and perhaps a morning walk in the lodge grounds, before beginning the drive back to Nairobi, around 2–3 hours, climbing out of the Rift Valley with a last stop at the viewpoint above the valley floor.

On arrival in Nairobi, there is time for lunch before you are transferred to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward flight, or to a city hotel if you are extending your stay. Kwaheri, and thank you for travelling with Gip Adventure.