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SILVER AFRICA TOURS & SAFARIS

Airport North Rd, Nyayo Embakasi suite 88/13,
P.O.BOX 60854 code 00200 city square,
Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa
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http://www.silverafricatours.com

Kenya in Style Safari.

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TOUR CODE: SAT001
Validity: 01st March 2009 ? 15th December 2010
Minimum: 02 pax
Transportation: Seven (7) 4 x 4 Landcruiser with the services of an English speaking driver/guide
Start: Nairobi
End: Nairobi
Departures: Guaranteed daily departure

Trsf ? Transfer, BB ? Bed & Breakfast, L ? Lunch, D ? Dinner , LDBB ? Lunch, Dinner, Bed & Breakfast, E ? Early morning game drive, A ? Morning game drive, P ? Afternoon game drive, LE ? Leisure, CT ? Crater Tour, GV ? Game viewing from the lodge, FLT - Flight

DETAILED ITINERARY

DAY 01 ? ARRIVAL NAIROBI

Met upon arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport by Silver Africa Tours Representative. Assistance and transfer to The Panafric Hotel. Rest of the day at leisure with the possibility of realizing optional excursions. Accommodation on bed and breakfast basis at The Panafric Hotel (BB).

The 153-roomed hotel has in addition 46 fully serviced apartments and has undergone a systematic product development project which has seen extensive refurbishing of Accommodation and Conference rooms at a cost of hundreds of millions of shillings. The Hotel's Suites, Superior & Standard rooms are stylishly furnished and adequately equipped to project a modern world class hotel. Each guest room has sparkling and sophisticatedly modern look, with custom-made beds, polished wood and tactile fabrics. Amenities include direct Internet connectivity from the comfort of the room, a direct dial phone, 24- channel satellite TV and fast friendly 24-hour room service available at the touch of a button.

DAY 02 ? NAIROBI/MASAI MARA GAME RESERVE

Leaving Nairobi after breakfast, you will travel towards Kenya's lush highlands and drive down the Rift Escarpment on a road built during world war II by Italian prisoners of war. As you negotiate the winding road, interesting views of the Rift Valley reveal themselves below and the scenery becomes awe-inspiring. You'll be able to view the impressive dormant volcanic Mountains of Longonot and Suswa as you head across the valley floor to Narok. After a short stop in Narok continue to Masai Mara arriving in time for lunch at Mara Sopa Lodge. Afternoon game drive. Dinner and overnight at Mara Sopa Lodge (LDBB).

DAY 03 ? MASAI MARA GAME RESERVE

Very early in the morning, after a cup of coffee or tea in the lodge you will join your driver-guides and set out for an early morning game drive in the reserve. This is usually the best game viewing time as during the early hours, temperatures are low and the animals are the most active. The plains game roam the savannahs licking on the morning dew on the leaves, watching all the while for the predators. Back in the lodge, enjoy your sumptuous buffet breakfast then it?s time to relax or swim in the lodge?s pool. Mid morning game drive followed by lunch in the lodge. Afternoon game drive. Dinner and overnight at Mara Sopa Lodge (LDBB).

The Masai Mara is one of the most famous game viewing areas in Africa. Large herds of game, including the amazing Great Migration of wildebeest and zebra, are still found here. Masai Mara Sopa Lodge is set in the Oloolaimutia Valley and blends perfectly with the surrounding hillside landscape. The lodge is located 206 km south of the Equator on the eastern boundary of the Masai Mara Game Reserve in southwestern Kenya, 2km from the Oloolaimutia Gate. The accent here is on the indigenous Masai people and the fabulous wealth of wildlife, birdlife and natural flora. Luxuriously appointed bedrooms, a refreshing swimming pool, a boutique and gift shop, wildlife films and CNN all ensure that your stay will be blissfully comfortable. The lodge has 77 rooms, 12 suites and 1 Presidential suite, all of which are 'rondavel' style and have en-suite bathroom facilities, which provide shaving sockets and hairdryers. Every room and suite has a private, elevated veranda with splendid views across the valley. Here guests can relax, sunbathe and watch resident birds and wildlife. Mini-bars are also available in each room. The lodge has direct-dial telephone facilities as well as satellite television and video options. Lodge generators provide 240volts, 50 cycles 24 hours a day. The water supply is from nearby springs but filtered water, provided in flasks in every room, and bottled water is recommended for drinking. Like all pools at other Sopa lodges, the free-form swimming pool here too has a stunning location, overlooking the Oloolaimutia Valley. In addition to all these modern facilities there is a well-stocked shop selling curios, clothing, jewellery, general accessories and personal requisites and toiletries.

The lodge has spacious conference facilities for up to 120 guests and is an excellent venue for special occasions. It can cater for birthday and anniversary parties, bush breakfasts, lunches or bar-b-ques, sundowner cocktail parties, gala dinners or theme evenings. The Sopa has all the facilities that a modern traveller could wish for and more - a stunning location in one of the greatest wildlife havens in the world. The lodge has 77 rooms, 12 suites and 1 Presidential suite, all of which are 'rondavel' style and have en-suite bathroom facilities, which provide shaving sockets and hairdryers. Every room and suite has a private, elevated veranda with splendid views across the valley. Here guests can relax, sunbathe and watch resident birds and wildlife. Mini-bars are also available in each room. The lodge has direct-dial telephone facilities as well as satellite television and video options. Lodge generators provide 240volts, 50 cycles 24 hours a day.

The water supply is from nearby springs but filtered water, provided in flasks in every room, and bottled water is recommended for drinking. Like all pools at other Sopa lodges, the free-form swimming pool here too has a stunning location, overlooking the Oloolaimutia Valley. In addition to all these modern facilities there is a well-stocked shop selling curios, clothing, jewellery, general accessories and personal requisites and toiletries. The lodge has spacious conference facilities for up to 120 guests and is an excellent venue for special occasions. It can cater for birthday and anniversary parties, bush breakfasts, lunches or bar-b-ques, sundowner cocktail parties, gala dinners or theme evenings. The Sopa has all the facilities that a modern traveller could wish for and more - a stunning location in one of the greatest wildlife havens in the world.

Probably the most famous of the reserves, the Masai Mara, in Kenya's southwestern corner, boasts an astonishing amount of game. Unfenced, the Mara is bounded in the east by the Ngama Hills and in the west by the Oloololo or Siria Escarpment. Gazelle, wildebeest and zebra graze in large numbers and where prey is found so are predators. Not only is this a great place in which to find game, but also the wide greeny-gold savannahs spotted with thorn trees make it ideal for photography. The Mara, as it is known in Kenya, is ravishingly beautiful and also offers long, undisturbed views and utterly dramatic panoramas. The weather really means something here. The sun may beat down unforgiving, huge clouds in fabulous shapes may sweep across the widest of skies; the wind ripples the grasses as though a giant hand strokes them. The landscape is stunning. The famously black-manned Mara lions are possibly the stars of the Mara show, but cheetah, elephant, kongoni, topi, Thompson's gazelle, waterbuck, hyena, and primates are all here too. As with the rest of Kenya, the birding is good. There is no settlement within the reserve however, the Mara is in theory owned by the Masai, pastoralists and, in earlier times, renowned lion-killers. Lodges and hotels offer the opportunity to buy their beadwork, checked cloths and copies of their spears. It is said that if lions scent approaching Masai on the breeze they move swiftly in the opposite direction. Famously, the Mara is the northerly end of the Great Migration, that great primeval surge of wildebeest, zebra and antelope that sweeps in from Tanzania's Serengeti to Kenya's Masai Mara as the Tanzanian grass starts to fail. The large predators who pick off the weak, the stragglers and the young track them. The great herds, nearing their destination by July, mass along the Mara River, pushing, shoving and fantastically noisy, just waiting for the first animal to cross so that they can all follow, lemming-like, on the final leg of the journey. However, crocodiles lie in wait, sluggishly cruising the waters, fully prepared for their best meal of the year. Many fail in the life-and-death struggle - drowned, eaten by the crocodiles or, made careless or weak by their stressful swim, brought down by lions. The Masai Mara is terrible yet wonderful, and not to be missed.

DAY 04 ? MASAI MARA/LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK

After breakfast, leaving Masai Mara, head back to Narok, district headquarters of this part of Masai land and then travel across the vast plains on the floor of the Rift Valley keep an eye out for herds of giraffe and gazelle. Turn left when you reach the road at the foot of the Rift Escarpment and drive to Lake Nakuru National Park arriving in time for lunch at Sarova Lion Hill Lodge. Afternoon game drive. Dinner and overnight at Sarova Lion Hill Lodge (LDBB).

Situated in the heart of the Rift Valley, Lake Nakuru is one of Kenya's most famous soda lakes. A major feature of this park is the wonderful bird life, particularly the thousands of flamingos, which create a shimmering pink hue over the lake. A rhino sanctuary also provides the opportunity to see the endangered black rhino. Sarova Lion Hill offers a unique vantage point. Each of the 64 superbly appointed chalets with private secluded veranda enjoys views over the lake and the distant hills. Even the glorious pool has a view!

Originally declared a national park because of a superbly diverse bird population, which includes many migrants, the park is also a favourite place for travellers to seek the rare black rhino. However, it is for the flamingos that the lake is best known, and it was for their protection that the park was originally created. The level of the blue-green alkaline waters here varies and this, with other accompanying environmental changes, causes considerable variation in the flamingo population, but when they are present, en masse, the whole lake turns a gorgeous rosy pink. Although protection of the flamingo population on the lake was the original rationale for the inception of the national park, further land was included in the early seventies and it is now about 190 sq m. This expansion, which took in a large grassland area, has allowed the park to protect further species. Buffalo, zebra, antelope and both lion and leopard are to be found. The rather less ubiquitous reedbuck and waterbuck are also here as is the glamorously leggy Rothschild giraffe. Temptingly, the black rhino-breeding programme, started in the late eighties, has proved successful and this is an excellent place to view them.

DAY 05 ? LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK/MOUNT KENYA

After breakfast drive to Mount Kenya arriving in time for lunch at The Mount Kenya Safari Club. Afternoon at leisure. Dinner and overnight at Mount Kenya Safari Club (LDBB)

The Mount Kenya Safari Club was founded in 1959 by William Holden, the late film star, highly eccentric American Ray Ryan and Carl Hirschmann, a Swiss financier. From the outset it attracted a cosmopolitan and glamorous clientele - those connected with Hollywood and the royalty and jet set that found the Hollywood connection irresistible. The Club still retains a strong sense of history and, unlike many hotels, has not swept away the old in favour of the new. The William Holden cottages retain an ambience recalling the 1950's glamour that is now so fashionable - huge French windows, white terrace furniture, and large cosy sofas in the central sitting room. The Riverside suites are more modern and very private, with vaulted ceilings and riverfront sites. The roaring fires, fuelled by huge logs that are lit every evening in the cottages add considerably to the feeling of soothing relaxation experienced by the visitor. The huge grounds at the Club are absolutely fabulous! Immaculately kept, abundant with beautiful blooming shrubs and trees, dotted with ponds and lakes, and alive with marabou storks, little egrets and peacocks, they stretch verdantly into the distance with the dramatic bulk of Mount Kenya behind. A beautiful pool, surrounded by colonial style cane furniture, also has the mountain as its backdrop. Often wreathed in cloud it appears from time to time allowing the observer a sense of privilege. The main club building is dotted with memorabilia - huge trophy heads from the days when hunting was permitted and photographs of famous actors, actresses and various luminaries, from the past up to the present day, adorn the walls.

DAY 06 ? MOUNT KENYA/NAIROBI/DEPARTURE

After breakfast drive to Nairobi, Kenya?s colourful capital city. Drop off at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for your onward departure flight. End of our services. All prices indicated are in US$ and are net and non commissionable:

Easter supplement applicable on 10+11+12+13.04.10(inclusive) US$45.00 per person per night

Included:
? Accommodation and meals as indicated above
? Seven (7) seater minibus with English speaking driver/guide
? Game drives as indicated above
? All park fees
? One (1) litre bottle of mineral water per person per day on safari
? All transfers and assistance


Excluded:
? International flights, visas and airport taxes
? Personal expenses like drinks, tips, laundry etc
? Personal insurance and baggage insurance

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