Southern Rift Valley
Southern Rift Valley is a region of Kenya.
Cities
Other destinations
- 1 Aberdare National Park
- 2 Amboseli National Park
- 3 Hell's Gate National Park
- 4 Lake Nakuru National Park – small, but has a good variety of wildlife (apart from birdlife) including rhino (both black and white), buffalo, lion, leopard, eland and more common plains game such as impala and zebra
- 5 Masai Mara National Park
- 6 Mount Kenya National Park
- 7 Mount Longonot National Park
- 8 Nairobi National Park
- 9 Tsavo East National Park
- 10 Tsavo West National Park
Understand
This is the portion of the Rift Valley in Kenya more or less to the south of the Ewaso N'goro. It includes the capital city of Nairobi and the National Parks between Nairobi and Mombasa.
The rift is home to a wide range of Kenya's peoples including nomadic herding peoples such as the Turkana, Pokot, Samburu and Maasai but also including farmers such as the Kikuyu and even remnant groups of hunter-gatherer peoples such as the Ogiek who live in the remaining forests on the Mau escarpment of the Rift valley.
Get in
Matatu is the standard way of getting around, but be warned it can be very cramped, with goods, people and chickens packing into a 7-seater minibus. It is very common for these to go very fast, to be uninsured, and they are often involved in accidents. They drive appallingly and many are not roadworthy especially for long trips up-country or down to the coast as the roads are very badly maintained. They are not often used by tourists for these reasons so beware!
Get around
Some of the main trunk roads of Kenya pass along the rift valley so travel in this region is relatively straight forward.
The Matatu is good for getting from A to B, but if you want some luxury for not much more you can hire a 4x4 taxi.
See
- The Kenya Lake System in the Great Rift Valley, that were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011.