We’d rushed to this point along the Mara River, in the northern Serengeti’s Kogatende area, here in Tanzania. Looking through his binoculars to judge the size of the herd amassing, my ambitious and endlessly energetic Maasai guide, Moinga, had glanced at his watch and declared: “We can make it.” Crashing across granite gullies and swerving through quagmires of sticky black cotton mud, we’d arrived right on cue.
Every summer, in relentless pursuit of new grass, wildebeests cross the watery border to Kenya, before being lured back by rains between October and November and heading hundreds of miles south to calve on the Serengeti’s southern plains. The migration is often synonymous with river crossings like this, but for most people who witness the herbivores’ annual grazing cycle, the primary spectacle to behold is that of vast golden plains painted black.
This story is from the April 2021 edition of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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This story is from the April 2021 edition of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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