Kevin picked us
up at 8:00 and we were on our way to Amboseli National Park (with another stop
at an ATM for more cash). Lots of domestic animals, colorful vehicles...
and lost of roadside shops, vendors and people standing in the middle of the road selling stuff to truck drivers.
The route we
took was called the Mombasa Road as it goes to the port city of Mombasa. Have never seen so many commercial trucks in our lives. The Mombasa port is the largest
on the east coast of Africa. Africa
imports about 50% of all their goods and materials so this port is very, very
busy and requires many, many trucks to transport the goods all over east
central Africa. The photos don't do it justice.
Along the route
we saw an ostrich and several giraffes not far from the road. About 30% of the wildlife in Kenya is not in
the parks and reserves. So there is
always a chance of seeing these interesting creatures.
We had a
mid-morning stop for a break. Our stop
was at a major African craft market.
There were tons of carved items and lots of beautiful artwork. We refrained from any purchases…no room in
the luggage.
We eventually
turned off the road to a dirt road that took us to Amboseli.
Some weaver bird nests along the drive into the park.
Even before we reached the park we saw zebras...
and Thompson gazelles…
and a few gerenuk, also called giraffe
gazelles because they have realllly long necks. These are near-threatened Kevin said it is very unusual
to see those so we were very fortunate.
Our lodge is Ol
Tukai Lodge (name of a palm tree that is abundant on the lodge grounds) right
in the park.
The grounds are huge with
lots of trees and stone walkways. The grounds are surrounded by an electric
fence to keep the grazing wildlife off the property. But there are lots of
Vervet Monkeys all over the place.
And the buildings
are beautiful. Our room looks over the
savannas and we can occasionally see some of the wildlife from our window.
We had lunch
outdoors in a lovely pavilion…they had a very nice buffet.
At 4:00 we were
out front to meet Kevin for our first game drive in Kenya. We saw tons of animals…the big ones included:
elephants (Amboseli is known for their elephants and we saw a lot),
warthogs,
wildebeests,
hippos,
Cape Buffalo,
Masai Giraffes,
Yellow Baboons
and lots of
gazelles, both Thompson’s and Grant’s. The Grant’s are larger and they have white on
the top of their tails while the Thompson’s are black.
There were many large herds made up of many different animal types but mainly gazelles, zebras and wildebeests.
Water seeps from
Mt. Kilimanjaro through the rocks under the mountain and come out not far from
the lodge. The waters make the area
rather swampy and there is even a large lake that had tons of flamingos, both Greater Flamingos
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More Greater Flamingos
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and Lesser Flamingos.
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More Lesser Flamingos
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There are over 400 bird species in Amboseli National Park and we saw tons of them...it was amazing.
Ostriches
Red-billed Teal
Long Toed Lapwing
African Jacana
Black Winged Stilts
Glossy Ibis
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Video of Guinea Fowls
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and Spoonbills.
Of Mount
Kilimanjaro we have seen almost nothing.
There is an unobstructed view of the mountain from our lodge (and our
room) but it is shrouded in haze. We can
just barely make out the lower slopes of the mountain…they are just a slightly
darker shade of haze.
And we even had a bit of a sunset to cap off the day.
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