The rumor is spreading that in the Maasai Mara now each region charges it's own entrance fee. Being 4 regions, theoretically a person travelling through all regions in a day would pay the full price 4 times !!!

Can any of our readers who have recently been to the Maasai Mara confirm this information?

Thank you

Carsten

I cannot confirm however I have heard that this could have become the case "through" my dad's connections in the Mara.
When I am back in the office tomorrow I could try and get some info from the UN FAO or Mr David Western.

If this is confirmed I really have no more words...

i have got the confirmation by a camp in one of the concercancys that this practise is already in place. it's a bit tricky to rule this double/triple/quadruple payment out but it cannot be taken for granted that it functions in every case!

as far as i am concerned i doubt that tourists swallow this kind of cashing in. they might swallow it once but then tick the whole of kenya and shift to another safari destination!

for example when you do a safari in botswana - a destination with that certain "luxury tag" you won't even realize there are parkfees at all! of course there are....but it's already included in the daily rate - a psychologically good thing.
when it comes to kenya's high end camps which are as expensive as compareable camps in botswana one realises that an enormous parkfee has to be paid on top of the rate!
i assume if this multiple payment stays in place.........kenya prices itself out of the market. especially because kenya is labelled a "mass market".

one good thing will come out of this: the game, especially the big cats and here the cheetahs, get some rest due to the expected growing silence in the reserves and parks !

Ciao Pippa,

I have been talking about this today with Carsten - it will also stop for example 15 vans surrounding one lion as I am sure every lodge will stick to their "area" and not cross other areas to look for cats etc.

Herbie called me and has just come back from those areas - it is in place.
What we shall find happening is lodges will start keeping the clients in one area.

Gone are the days where I was driving with the wildlife migration paths to Tanzania.... I hope they know what they are doing!!

Hello! I am so glad I found 'Bushdrums' - what a wealth of information to found on this site.

I was in the Masai Mara September 3rd through September 19th of this year staying at Kichwa Tembo camp. I can attest that during our stay there the topic of conversation was the entrance fee at the Musiara Gate.

In June 2006 the Mara Triangle increased their park entrance fee to US$40.00/day per person which included those staying at Kichwa Tembo. If someone from Governor's Camp came through the Oloololo Gate (Kichwa side) they only needed to paid US$10.00 to the Mara Conservancy since they had already paid their US$40.00 on the other side. NOTE: Visitors received a receipt from Oloololo Gate Officials saying they paid their US$10.00.

Sometime between June and our visit in September the Trans Mara County Council/Mara Conservancy held a meeting and invited the Narok County Council to discuss Entrance Fees into the Mara. The Narok Council did NOT show up at the meeting.

Word now was that if you wanted to go through the Musiara Gate from anywhere else you had to pay US$40.00, but they were not giving receipts. Since we really wanted to visit Musiara area so much we decided to go there on September 15th. We had heard that the attendants were taking payments of anywhere from US$10.00 to the 'required' US$40.00 - some people got receipts, some people didn't.

We arrived at the Musiara Gate at 6:30 am and our Driver/Guide went in to speak to the Gate Official. Gate Official didn't seem to be sure on the entrance fee and called someone who said the fee was US$40.00. We made it very clear that we wanted a receipt for any monies paid, but also said that another one of our vehicles the day before had paid US$10.00 per person. To make a long story longer we paid US$10.00 per person and they would NOT give us a receipt.

Now here comes the interesting part of our trip. We had been in the Musiara area for about two hours and all of a sudden a military type vehicle drives up and demands to see our 'receipts' for entering the park. We said that we did not have any but we paid our money at the Musiara Gate and they wouldn't give us a receipt. All this conversation (in Swahili) was going on between our Driver/Guide and a gentleman in a military type uniform (I think it was the Park dress) with four other Park people in their vehicle all banishing rifles. A very heated conversation ensued between the both of them and it was decided that our vehicle would be escorted to the Keekorok area (about 50 miles away) and our Driver/Guide was going to thrown in jail and they would arrange for us to be taken back to Kichwa Tembo. Our Driver/Guide explained this to us in English. We had six people in our vehicle and we all said (very, very loudly) that we PAID and DID NOT get a receipt. Guess that was the right thing to say and the Officials took down our Driver/Guide's name and license plate number, smiled and waved goodbye to us. We went on our merry way, and finally headed back to Kichwa. Nothing ever came of taking down this information I found out later.

We told the Manager of Kichwa and the Head Ranger what happened. We considered what we went through, and they agreed, that we had been harassed. No rules, payment guidelines, payment receipts were in place at Musiara Gate and to treat visitors this way was unacceptable. Kichwa Manager was going to call the Chief Executive of the Mara Conservancy and also bring this up at a meeting he was attending in Nairobi in two days.

We also understood that the Maasi were charging US$40.00 to visit the Leopard Gorge area, made popular by the BBC "Big Cat Diary".

I have no objection to paying entrance to any area of the Mara, when I know that the money will be used for conservation, park maintenance, salaries of park staff, etc. but if any money is not going where it is suppose to go (you get my drift) I will not visit that area.

I totally agree with Pippa with the 'cashing in' statement. I'm glad that Kenya (at least the Mara) seems to have bounced back and tourists are returning, but again they are pricing themselves out of the market.

Just my two cents worth.

Hello Dana,
thank you so much for your detailed description on your experience. Very sad to read what is happening there and especially your personal experience. Obviously the new charges are official but until this is being controlled fully, everyone is trying to take advantage of the situation to make some extra bugs. I believe, the only thing tourists can do in this case is to complain to the camp or safari venue they booked with as they know who they need to put pressure on. If this situation continues much longer, the Masai Mara will get a very bad reputation and tourism will drop rapidly.

Dana, thank you very much for the compliments about bushdrums. I would love to read more from you. Maybe some reviews of places you have stayed? Our readers always love to know what others who have been to a camp/lodge think of it and helps them make the right choice. If you need assistance, you can send me an e-mail to

carsten(at)bushdrums(dot)com

- Sorry for this way of writing the e-mail address, need to protect myself from spam.

Hope to hear more from you soon ...

Carsten