After a short stop in Nairobi, we started our camping trip to Maasai Mara.
Trying to find out how to do a Safari the cheap way had been surprisingly hard to find out, as almost all information is about those standard safari tours which include transport from Nairobi, staying at one of their camps and also the transport back in the end.
The first discovery was, that it’s possible to sleep in an actual tent (a tiny one like you would use to go camping.. without actual beds, chairs, bathroom inside) and at least the cheaper camps let you either pitch your own tent (starting around 7 USD / person / night) or rent out tents and camping equipment (again starting around 7 USD / night).
We ended up in Talek Bush Camp because Mostafa was on Couchsurfing, and because it was one of the cheapest options.
First the plan was for only the two of us, but we managed to find 3 more CS people who wanted to join and so we were 5 people. We met at 6 am in Nairobi where the Matatus to Narok leave from, to make sure we would be in Narok on time to catch the car to Talek.
Getting to Talek by public transport was easy enough – first a Matatu from Nairobi to Narok, and then another one from Narok to Talek along a very bumpy and dusty dirt road. For that second part of the trip, we somehow ended up on a private transport (thus quite expensive!) instead of the official Matatu mentioned in different online posts. The official one seems to depart at/around/a bit after noon and I have no idea how uncomfortable it may be 😉
Another interesting discovery: prices seem to change depending on demand and as we went at Christmas, it was a lot more expensive than I had read online!
Our camp was just next to Talek “city” and the Talek Gate of Maasai Mara. We spent the first afternoon walking around the city and having beer at a bar. The next day was an all-day game drive in the park! We saw everything I wanted to see and even managed to see the sunset with giraffe silhouettes in the foreground.
For the way back to Narok, the camp organised us a private car (which ended up being cheaper than the shared one we came with), only that guy was late, had no idea of the way, and the car seemed to have no shock absorbers at all, so he drove unbelievably slowly and the way took us an eternity.
There is also a public option, which leaves at 4 or 5 am, but the others didn’t like that ;(
From Narok, we just took the next Matatu to Naivasha where we’re going to spend the next 2 nights. We arrived at Fisherman’s camp when it was already dark, but it was easy enough to mount the tent. And we skipped the tent pegs – we realised that we didn’t have any! I guess the backpacks are heavy enough to keep the tent from flying away.