A thick black line runs along the horizon, moving at a slow and steady pace. Without any definitive beginning or end, it seems to stretch for infinity, a bold marker that will underscore the skyline for several months. This parade of ‘black ants’ has travelled from Tanzania ’s Serengeti National park to reach the vast plains of Kenya ’s Masai Mara National Reserve, following the smell of rain and fresh pastures.
As we draw closer, a chorus of see-sawing moos grows louder, and a rising sun backlights the fine flowing beards and shiny curved horns of several hundred wildebeest. Staring through his binoculars, my safari guide, Jackson, grins and nods his head: “The Great Migration has arrived.” Every year, more than 1.
5 million wildebeest arrive in the Mara, accompanied by thousands of zebra and gazelles. One of Africa ’s last big movements of animals is in constant rotation around neighbouring Tanzania’s Serengeti ecosystem, but it’s their arrival across the Sand and Mara rivers bordering both countries that draws the biggest crowds. Read more on Africa travel : In an epic knife-edge spectacle, animals charge across crocodile-infested waters, dodging the claws of predatory lions waiting in ambush, to reach new grazing grounds.
“They’ve arrived earlier than usual and in big numbers,” explains Jackson, predicting a bumper year. Although I don’t see a crossing during my short visit, signs of the migration are everywhere. Driving across the Mara’s plains.