After 2 days in Nairobi, it was time for my 10 day safari to begin. First stop, Amboseli National Park! My safari guide picked me up first thing in the morning. As mentioned in my last post, I booked this safari very last minute and so options were limited and I ended up booking a private safari, which I did not fully realize meant I had the whole safari jeep to myself. My driver Hassan was a cool guy and we had some great conversation on the way there ranging from Kenya, America, COVID, politics, wildlife and travel.
Amboseli is mainly known for 2 things; it is located at the foot of Mount Kilamanjaro and generally has better weather/visibility of the mountain than you can find on the Tanzanian side. Additionally it has the largest elephant population of any park in the world, with herds of up to 100 elephants. Unfortunately Kilamanjaro hid above the clouds for the 2.5 days we were there so I never got to see it, this is pretty common from what I understand and it’s rare that you can see the peak from anywhere.
Overall I spent 2 days and 3 nights in Amboseli, with an early morning and late afternoon game drive each day.Amboseli was beautiful, it lived up to its elephant reputation as we saw hundreds, including some massive elephant herds and some enormous bull elephants with huge tusks. In addition to that we saw a couple male lions, cheetahs, and hyenas along with lots of zebra, wildebeests, flamingos, cape buffalos, giraffes, ostriches, hippos, baboons and antelopes.
Elephants are fascinating animals and I learned a lot about them on this trip. The amount of grass and water they consume on a daily basis is mind blowing. They will eat up to 300 lbs of grass and spend up to 20 hours per day eating! They also wash this down by drinking up to 50 gallons of water per day. Additionally, they are very intelligent animals which results in them causing some problems for local farmers when they are looking for food. While they put up things like electric fences to keep the elephants out of their farms, the elephants sometimes get creative and pick up dead trees, drop them on the fences to clear a path through. They are also super protective of their young and all the big elephants surround the babies when they and moving or eating.
The camp I stayed in at Amboseli was beautiful, I stayed in a nice comfortable “tent” (it was more of a house than a tent, complete with electicity, running water and a comfortable bed). Also the food was top notch and I ate like a king, although I was still unable to find any elusive “true Kenyan food.” Although I was really hoping for a chance to see Kilamanjaro, it was a great kick off to the safari and provided a lot of great wildlife viewing.
