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I and my family rented a 4×4 Land cruiser Prado TZ for 4 weeks to drive around Uganda and Kenya by ourselves. And first of all, I have to say, that Maike and his team did such a great job towards our holiday arrangements.
Explore Uganda with 4×4 Rooftop Tent Jeep
You have a question? No problem, because Maike answered within such a short time (especially when it’s urgent). We received the car at our hotel in Entebbe and the adventure began – after a few days he asked in an email if everything is fine. Everything was perfect but it was so nice to have the feeling that someone is taken care of.
Because of Corona it was a lot to manage (Corona Test, etc.) – So 4×4 Car Hire Uganda gave us a lot of help e.g., where we could go to a test station. Also, when we crossed the border, which is really crazy for a European person, Maike and his team took care of us. We met an agent at the border to Kenya (Busia border) who helped us to walk through the steps to cross the border.
On our way back he offered us to send us an agent again but we wanted to try for ourselves at Busia border – I would recommend this border because there are fewer trucks. Sometimes the streets are really bumpy or in really bad conditions but the car always did a great job and you never felt insecure! We didn’t have a flat tire because all the cars offered by this company come with very good conditioned tires and spare tires too was new.
In Kenya we visited the Nairobi city tourist places like Elephants orphanage center (Shedrick), Giraffe center and museum, Nairobi National Park, Amboseli, Samburu and Masai Mara National Reserves, the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and the Lakes Nakuru and Naivasha.
In Nairobi, Amboseli, Samburu, we spotted giraffes, Somali ostriches, several lionesses, elephants, baboons, warthogs, a cheetah, several types of antelope oryx, Grant’s gazelles, the long-necked gerenuk and the endangered Grevy’s zebras that were being fed hay to keep them alive during the prolonged drought.
In Ol Pejeta, a herd of Cape buffalo rested within easy eyesight across a ditch from the lawn of the Sweet water Lodge. We were able to get very close to and even feed the blind black rhino Baraka. We visited the sanctuary for rescued chimpanzees and saw many mammals (including plains zebras, white rhinos, spotted hyenas, impalas, Thompson’s gazelles, elephants, and a cheetah) and birds (such as the African sacred ibis, the blacksmith lapwing, and the pied crow).
At Lake Nakuru, there were white rhinos on the road and a black rhino in a field. We observed the preliminary mating ritual of two Rothschild giraffes. Most spectacular were the birds in the lake: a long row of the pink lesser flamingoes, numerous greater flamingoes and pelicans, and the colorful storks both the yellow-billed and the Marabou.
We stayed three nights in Masai Mara. New animals to us there included the Masai giraffe (yes, there are three kinds of giraffe in Kenya), the Topi and hartebeest antelopes, and the common ostrich. There were also many elephants and zebras and occasional warthogs and baboons. On the first full day, we saw several lions, including a male who walked among the several sightseeing vehicles that had gathered to see him as if they weren’t there.
The crackle of the radio, as the guides let each other know where a lion, cheetah, or leopard could be seen, was one of the ambient sounds of our excursions. We traveled to the Masai River to see crocodiles and a school of hippos. Toward the end of the day, we followed a leopard stalking a Topi antelope. The next day, we started before breakfast and saw a rare black rhino in the early light.
During the day we tracked a herd of mama elephants and their children and saw a baby sucking milk from its mother with its mouth and not its trunk. Late in the afternoon, we stayed for a while with a lone cheetah and, after that, as the sun was setting, we encountered another black rhino moving through the grass.
At Lake Naivasha, we took a boat ride. The lake had several hippos and many birds sacred ibis, great white pelican, pied kingfisher, Egyptian geese, and the stunning lilac-breasted roller. There were also young men who waded into the water to fish. At the end of the lake, we left the boat for a while to walk through a conservancy where we could walk right up to plains zebras, Masai giraffes, and water buck antelopes.
Amboseli was the last place we visited before returning to Nairobi. A good part of it is a treeless swamp fed by the rainfall on the nearby Mt Kilimanjaro. In the fall of 2022, the rest of the park was quite dry, as Amboseli was in the midst of a severe drought.
Although there was much water in marshy areas, the vegetation that grows there is inadequate to support non-ruminant animals like wildebeest and zebra. These animals would become too weak to extricate themselves from the marsh, remain stuck there, and die of starvation. Elephants were a bit luckier.
The full-grown elephants could pull themselves out of the swampy water and knew they needed to walk back to the forest at the foot of the mountain to eat from the trees and shrubs there. But the younger ones often had difficulty. There were birds everywhere of many varieties: flamingoes, ibises, egrets, pelicans, storks, and others. Amboseli showed us both the abundance of nature and its cruelty.
In Nairobi, after the safari, we had two excellent dinners. The first was at the Mama Oliech restaurant where we each had an entire tilapia surrounded with vegetables and drenched in African spices. The second restaurant was Stavros, where my brother had a poussin (chicken) dish and I had a spicy bronzini.
So all in all it was a perfect vacation! And our 4×4 car was perfect! We always would recommend 4×4 Car Hire Uganda and we definitely we will come back.