Amboseli National Park, Kenya

We spent a couple of days in Amboseli National Park doing morning and afternoon game drives. This national park is in Kenya, but right on the border of Tanzania with Mt. Kilimanjaro looming over the park. It makes for spectacular photos when Mt. Kilimanjaro isn’t hiding in the clouds. The name Amboseli is a Masai word meaning “salty dust”. They warned us ahead of time that we would see several dust devils swirling across the plains. This national park is known for their large herds of elephants. It did not disappoint. I am a big elephant lover. I love that they are matriarchal society and they protect one another and grief for their losses. They are smart and they are amazing animals. I was not disappointed in Amboseli National Park. We saw a lot of elephants. However, we saw a lot of other animals as well. We saw hyenas, hippos, Thomson’s gazelles, warthogs, zebras, African crowned cranes, wildebeests, a little yellow birds called village weavers, kori bustard bird, Masai giraffes, African elephants, lions, monkeys….we just saw a lot! We also saw a gerenuk, or a giraffe gazelle. We had never heard of them but they have very long necks and are definitely in the gazelle family. The photo of the monkey on roof watching the sunset was at our lodge. They only had the generator (which was solar) on in the evening and the early morning. Luckily, we were gone or sleeping the rest of the time. There was 2G wifi if you were in the main lodge and the generator was running. Many of you have asked about the food they served us in Africa. They served a LOT of food and it was mostly family style. They always gave us soup before the meals and it was pureed vegetables of some kind with cream and was very good. I even had beetroot soup and it wasn’t hot pink like I was expecting, but more of a red and tasted like cream of tomato soup. One thing we could not do was consume the water in any way. No ice, no brushing your teeth with the tap water….we had multiple bottles of water on us at all times. We brought with us a prescription of anti-malarial pills (which we never took) and then antibiotics for Montezuma’s revenge…which we both ended up taking. We were good with covering up and using bug spray when told we needed to and we used our mosquito netting around our bed every night. A lot of people had pretty adverse reactions to the anti-malarial pills, so we just didn’t do it. Anyhow, I think we had a good enough time that we might want to go back again….this time to different countries in southern Africa. We will see. We’ll most likely set up a group, so if you are interested….let us know! We were in Kenya and Tanzania at the perfect time…no rain…still green…winter temps…and lots of new baby animals! Here are some photos from Amboseli National Park, Kenya: