Elephant Pepper Camp is located in a remote section of a private and pristine wildlife conservancy with excellent year-round wildlife viewing and away from the crowds.

The camp's site within the well-managed Mara North Conservancy (MNC) means that guests will never experience a crowded wildlife sighting like those that sometimes occur in the Masai Mara National Reserve further to the south.

The MNC is a vast protected area, covering some 100 square miles and with only 10 safari camps. The majority of the camps in the MNC are located further west along the Mara River, so staying at Elephant Pepper is a truly exclusive experience. Read more about Mara North Conservancy below.

The camp itself is designed to mimic the romance of a luxury mobile camp from the bygone British Raj era, with spacious canvas tents, dark-wood campaign-style furniture, and brass fixtures. The camp and its 10 well-spaced tents are set into a thicket of fig and "elephant pepper" trees overlooking a vast grassy plain and wooded area beyond. Wildlife is frequently seen in and around the camp.

The camp offers ten safari tents, two of which are double-sized tents that have an extra lounge space that can be converted into a second bedroom accommodating children up to 16 years of age. The double tents can also be used for a couple wanting the extra space and luxury. All of the tents can also be converted to a triple to accommodate one child. Children of all ages are welcome.

Activities at Elephant Pepper include day and nighttime safari drives, guided bush walks, cultural visits, and hot-air balloon safaris. Game drives to the Mara River are offered, as are day trips into the national reserve (which can be worthwhile for viewing migration river crossings).

About the Masai Mara

The Greater Masai Mara includes the Masai Mara National Reserve as well as numerous private conservancies that border the reserve. The national reserve and bordering conservancies are often collectively referred to simply as "the Mara".

The Greater Masai Mara is part of a much larger ecosystem that includes vast protected areas directly to the south in Tanzania, including Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and other reserves that together make up the Greater Serengeti. The combined Greater Serengeti-Mara ecosystem, which combines the areas described above, covers roughly 15 000 square miles (39 000 sq kms).

The Serengeti-Mara is home to a very large number and diversity of wild animals and is also the location of the well-known "Great Migration" of over 2 million herbivores (read more below). This is arguably Africa's greatest overall wildlife destination.

Wildlife densities in the Greater Masai Mara are some of the highest in Africa, with commonly seen herbivores including blue wildebeest, plains zebra, Thomson's gazelle, topi, Grant's gazelle, hartebeest, giraffe, elephant, buffalo, impala, waterbuck, bush bug, warthog, and many others. Predators seen often include lion, leopard, spotted hyena, cheetah, serval, and jackal. Hippo and crocodile are found in large numbers in the Mara River.

Masai Mara National Reserve

The national reserve forms the core protected area of the Greater Masai Mara, covering 583 square miles (1 510 sq kms) and officially protected since 1974. The reserve is functionally the same as a national park, with restrictions on off-road driving and open to the public, which includes self-drivers coming for the day, as well as guests staying at one of the accommodations within the reserve (of which there are many).

The Mara Triangle
The Mara River flows southward through the national reserve on its way into Tanzania and eventually into Lake Victoria to the southwest. The river also separates the national reserve into two separately-managed sections: the area to the west of the Mara River is known as the "Mara Triangle", while the area to the east of the river is simply the Mara National Reserve.

The Mara Triangle covers 197 square miles (510 sq kms), which is roughly one-third of the reserve and there are relatively few safari camps in this section, so the number of vehicles and tourists, especially during the peak months when the migration is in present, is much lower in the Triangle section than in the section east of the Mara River.

The Great Migration

One of nature's greatest living spectacles is the Great Migration, a term given to describe the year-long, circular, clockwise march of over two million herbivores across the Masai Mara and Serengeti grasslands. The migration animals are made up entirely of two species: the blue wildebeest and the plains zebra (the majority of which are wildebeests).

The migrating herds follow their instincts to seek out fresh grazing and so the migration is ongoing, with the herds ever moving and taking a full year to complete a cycle across the Masai Mara and Serengeti. The animals move not as one herd, but as tens of thousands of animals in multiple herds of various sizes and spread out for many miles as they move.

The wildebeests and zebras take advantage of strongly seasonal conditions, spending the wet season (November through May) on the plains of Tanzania's Serengeti and the dry season in Kenya's Masai Mara. The wildebeests give birth between January and March on the short grass plains in Tanzania.

The timing of the migration is rarely ever the same year-to-year, as local conditions influence grass growth and as such, the location of the bulk of there animals cannot be known precisely. Rains and other unknown conditions seem to direct the timing of the migration, but generally, it is known within several weeks when the animals will be in a general location.

The migration typically crosses north into Kenya and the Masai Mara beginning sometime in mid- or late-July and they spend around three months in the Greater Masai Mara. The herds head back south into Tanzania sometime in October.

Although many visitors time their visit to the Masai Mara to coincide with the Migration, the Greater Mara has superb wildlife viewing outside of the migration period. This is because it is only the wildebeests and zebras that migrate, the rest of the animals, including the major predators like lion, leopard, spotted hyena, and cheetah, as well as all the other herbivores, including springbok, gazelles, elephant, topi, hartebeest, and many others, do not migrate.

A popular aspect of experiencing the Great Migration is observing a herd as it crosses the Mara River, which requires animals swimming through waters inhabited by large Nile crocodiles that wait for a chance to get their first substantial meal in many months.

The dramatic river crossings (which take place along the Mara River in both Kenya and Tanzania) are certainly a spectacle and not for the faint of heart, with many of the wildebeest and zebras taken by crocs or succumbing to drowning or trampling in the chaos.

The best chances for seeing a Kenya Mara River crossing are during July and August, when the crocodiles are still very hungry.

Mara Conservancies

Over the past two decades, nearly all of the land situated surrounding the Masai Mara National Reserve has been organized into protected and self-managed reserves by various tribes of the Maasai people that own the land. The result has been a great expansion of wildlife tourism and the construction of safari tourism camps and lodges.

Note that some of the conservancies use the name 'group ranch' instead of conservancy.

Many of these conservancies, particularly those that directly border the national reserve, offer wildlife viewing that is even just as good, and arguably even better than inside the reserve, primarily because the conservancies are only available to tourists staying at a camp within the conservancy and unlike the national reserve itself, are not accessible to self-drive day visitors.

The exclusivity of the conservancies means that there are fewer game drive vehicles and a far lower density of tourists. Further, the number of vehicles allowed at any specific animal sighting (such as a lion kill or a leopard in a tree) is managed to prevent the oft-seen situation where an animal, such as a cheetah, is surrounded by 20 or more cars in the national reserve.

Staying in one of the Mara Conservancies offers guests the opportunity to have an exclusive game-viewing experience (due to the reduced tourist numbers compared to inside the national reserve), while still allowing day visits into the reserve proper (entrance fee required). A day visit into the reserve might allow seeing a major wildebeest/zebra river crossing during the migration months. Guided safari walks (during the day) and game drives past sunset are another option inside the conservancies that is not permitted inside the national reserve.

MARA NORTH CONSERVANCY (MNC)

The Mara North Conservancy (MNC) directly borders the Masai Mars National Reserve and is one of the best on the private conservancies in terms of wildlife viewing and overall organization and management.

Mara North is a large and spread out reserve, covering an area of 100 square miles (250 sq kms) and while much of its western border if along the Mara River and its southern boundary is the national reserve, reaching either on a day trip will depend on which of its safari camps you choose. MNC's partner members currently include 10 safari camps and 3 horse-riding outfits.

The MNC offers excellent game viewing on a year-round basis, including all the big cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards), plus an abundance of general plains game. During the migration months (August and September), the landscape is full of wildebeests and is a great place to be to avoid the crowds that occur during the high season in the Mara Reserve itself.

The Massai landowners retain the right to graze their cattle on the conservancy, so one will gain an appreciation of how tourism and indigenous people can function together. Vehicle numbers are restricted at wildlife sightings.