Behold! A land of unparalled beauty

By PETER NGANGI NGULI

Forget about politics. It is time to reflect on the beauty and diversity of our country.

From the glaciers on Mount Kenya to the coral-fringed Coast, Kenya has one of the most varied ranges of habitat in the world.

From the bleached sands of the eastern Coast lapped by the aquamarine waters of the Indian Ocean, to the primitive aridity of Turkana, Kenya offers a wonderful variety of landscape with a rich culture and wildlife.

In the West and in America in particular, Kenya is depicted with pictures of golden savannah dotted with game and studded with flat-topped umbrella acacia. It has been featured in so many Hollywood movies and wildlife films that it is embedded in our psyche as the real Africa. This is the land of the classic Safari, wide blue skies  and luxurious lodges, the land of wide blue skies. Don’t even mention the movie Born Free  was actually made in this country.

Kenya is simply stunning. It is here that the famous hakuna matata  phrase originated. Kenya is known as a land of smiles, hence the saying: Hakuna Matata (No worries). Kenyans are by nature, delightful, polite and hardworking people.

In the 1980’s, the phrase sent shockwaves in the world of music.

In 1982, Kenyan hotel band -Them Mushrooms, now known as Uyoga, released the Kiswahili song Jambo Bwana (Hello Mister), which has the phrase Hakuna Matata in its refrain.

The song was written by band leader Teddy Kalanda Harrison.

That was not the end of the phrase’s fame. In 1994, Walt Disney Animation Studios who animated the movie The Lion King brought the phrase to international recognition, featuring it prominently in the plot and devoting a song to it. It was written by Elton John and Tim Rice and got nominated for Best Original Song at the 1995 Academy Awards, and later ranked the 99th best song in movie history by the American Film Institute on a list of 100.

These two Academy Awards including Born Free movie put Kenya in the international limelight.

The movies also put Kenya in the picture of lions, cheetahs, hyenas and wildebeestes. That brings us to Maasai Mara. Its Great Wildebeest Migration is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The Masai Mara, which is uniquely known as the home of this migration, is Africa’s most famous game reserve.

Situated in Narok County, the reserve  has been ranked among the top five tourist attractions in the world and offers one of the greatest safari experiences in the African continent.

Maasai people

It is named in honour of the Maasai people and their description of the area when looked at from afar: ‘Mara’, which means spotted, an apt description for the circles of trees, scrub, savanna, and cloud shadows that mark the area.Termed as the 8th new wonder of the world, the wildebeest migration is one of the greatest wildlife shows on Earth, accompanied by tens of thousands of gazelles,  zebras and their predators that include lions and hyenas.

They migrate into and occupy the Mara reserve, from the Serengeti plains to the south and Loita plains in the pastoral ranches to the north-east.

The animals cross the Mara River annually from July to October, where crocodiles prey on them. This wonder has added weight to the fact that Kenya is one of the greatest places to go for holiday or vacation due to the numerous tourist attractions on offer.

The reserve is also globally famous for its exceptional population of lions, leopards, cheetahs, bufallos, elephants and black rhinos among others.

Covering an area of over 1,500 square km, the Maasai Mara is one of the most popular tourism destinations in Kenya. The reserve is located in the Great Rift Valley in primarily open grassland. Wildlife tends to be most concentrated on the reserve’s western escarpment.  The swampy land provides more access to water and less access to tourists. The eastern end is closest to Nairobi and hence easier to access by tourists. The Masai Mara is regarded as the jewel of Kenya’s wildlife viewing areas. The annual wildebeest migration alone involves over 1.5 million animals arriving in July and departing in November.

Hippopotami and Nile crocodiles are found in large groups in the Mara and Talek rivers. Leopards, hyenas, cheetahs, jackal, and bat-eared foxes can also be found in the reserve.

The plains between the Mara River and the Esoit Siria Escarpment are probably the best area for game viewing, in particular the lions and cheetahs.

Our large swamp, streams, salt lick, meandering Mara River, and a rainfall of up to 1,500 millimetres a year, means that there is enough food and water to keep wildlife in the Mara Triangle even during the dry months.

 Mara’s physical beauty and abundance of wildlife undoubtedly makes Kenya famous..