Elephants Galore: Amboseli National Park Kenya

It might not be the biggest, but Amboseli National Park gives generously on a safari game drive. We covered pretty much the whole park over 1.5 days and saw a long list of wildlife.

As mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to see lots of elephants and Amboseli more than delivered.

Amboseli National Park is famous mainly for two fabulous things:

The Amboseli safari experience

We didn’t see any big cats or rhino in Amboseli. The cats were probably busy doing what they do best – sleeping for 20+ hrs of the day (lions) or being being elusive (leopards). There are fewer big cats since it’s a smaller park, but they could also have been choosing to stay deeper into the areas away from humans and safari vehicles, out of sight….as pointed out by our game driver.

…..he also reflected that Amboseli is the park he’d recommend for a first time safari, since it’s small in size and rich in sightings – even if you don’t see everything on your list….he said you can spend days driving around popular Masai Mara and not really see much if you’re unlucky – it’s such a large vast space compared to Amboseli, and the animals are more likely to be seen from greater distances away.

When you’re on a game drive expecting to see everything you think you’re ‘supposed’  to see (like a tick box exercise) you’ll probably be disappointed and miss out on some of the less sensational moments and experiences around the park.

In Amboseli, vehicles stay on the designated paths, going off-road isn’t permitted, granting the animals lots of personal space.

The herd by the water

My absolute highlight was probably the largest herd of elephants we saw moving along by the water, beneath the observation point. Adults and babies all walking in a hierarchical line together.

Every elephant sighting was special, even those lone elephants that had me wondering why they were all alone, stunning to witness – and they were definitely my favourite animal.

What surprised me was how silently and gently the elephant herds moved together, no stomping sounds or scuffles, no vibration on the ground, just silence with bird song in the air – proving size is no barrier to elegance.

Honestly, I could’ve just sat and watched elephants all day….

I’ll talk about the elephant orphanage visit in another post, where I got a bit more up-close and personal.

Our game driver told us that when elephants mate, the rest of the herd watch and cheer them on!! Elephants really do have a lot of interesting quirky behaviours, and their trunks have more muscle complexity than that of an entire human body.

I’d also read that elephants can communicate with other herds over surprisingly long distances at low frequencies that the human ear can’t detect….who needs mobile phones!!

I learned that elephants die a very painful death when they start losing their teeth, and they have a pain threshold no human could ever cope with – they have multiple sets of teeth in a lifetime, not just two sets. Each set of teeth they lose is more painful than the last.

Eventually they end up with no teeth and die of starvation. It’s so sad, such lovely animals and they have to go through such an awful ordeal.

False teeth for elephants please….

Humans are an elephants’ only serious predator – ivory poaching. Though lions might try to bring an elephant down from time to time, they rarely succeed.

Mount Kilimanjaro

The highest mountain on the African continent and the highest above sea level in the world, my goodness!!

We didn’t get to see it in it’s full beaming glory thanks to the clouds but on day one in the park Mount Kilimanjaro graced us with a good preview of that towering presence along the skyline, very imposing.

I remember when our driver pointed it out as we were driving. We were all looking and looking – couldn’t see it because we were looking too low along the horizon; when you see just how high and huge it is with the naked eye you’ll be stunned.

If there was ever another volcanic eruption, Amboseli National Park would be no more – the animals would have to migrate to other areas….the entire park’s water source comes down from the melting ice cap of Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s been nearly 400 years since it last erupted (according to local sources) so hopefully it will just stay that way.

The Observation Point

The little hike up to the top was a welcome stretch for the legs and lungs after being cooped up in the vehicle for so long. I forgot to ask if there might be any big cats nearby before getting out lol, but I guess not – and given the huge number of safari vehicles and humans, they’d probably avoid the area.

The views from up there were spectacular – infinitely far reaching beautiful landscapes in stunning hues – with the sound of hundreds of those bright blue birds that we’d struggled to get pictures of on lower ground…. up here they were swarming the area and tweeting and chattering away en mass in the small trees, and hopping around on the ground….within touch touching distance.

Interesting fact: The animal responsible for the most human deaths in Kenya isn’t lions, buffalo or leopards, It’s the hippopotamus. Hippos kill more people than any other animal in Kenya, even though they’re not generally meat eaters and they seem very calm and easy going when you see them. Apparently they can run pretty fast on land and one snap of that jaw could take your head off.

Accommodation: Sopa Lodge, Amboseli

Just outside Amboseli National Park with strong hobbit vibes!

The spooky tree

Just next to our lunch stop restaurant inside the national park were two of these very imposing trees. Weirdly mesmerising, though I wouldn’t want to see this at night. “Reminds me of Maleficent” said a fellow traveller. Spot on.

Didn’t Pan’s Labyrinth have something similar…..

Birds

Across all the national parks you’ll see all kinds of birds, too many to count – so if you’re an avid birdwatcher you won’t be disappointed. We had a bird guide card in the safari vehicle and there were absolutely loads to look out for, all different colours and all sorts of fancy names. I don’t think I got a picture but we did see the iconic ‘Secretary Bird’, lovely – they’re huge by-the-way!!

Ostrich: they can run, they can dance, and they’re the fastest birds on land but they can’t fly…..and the males have to keep on dancing to attract a female!

Everything else

Wildebeest 

Countless jokes were made about the dear old wildebeest. They have a reputation for being incredibly stupid and seemingly dizzy and nonsensical in their actions – often heading straight into the face of danger with missguided confidence and fierce determination, where other animals would see sense and run the other way.

“They’re confused creatures” our driver joked about how wildebeest often move full circle ending up back exactly where they started when setting off to find new pastures (someone give em’ a map please!!) 

The song ‘Do you know where you’re going to….’ 🎶 springs to mind, that should be the theme tune for wildebeest.

They’ll cross a road, cross back and then cross back again – all of them following whoever is leading the merry walk to nowhere and back, hilarious!! Bless them.

There’s a moral in there somewhere….blindly following the herd to nowhere type thing, following the crowd.

Zebra fatigue

The first time you see a zebra – honestly, everyone will leap up out of their seats, amazed….needing to get a picture with an unmistakable orchestra of rapid camera clicks.

There’s no denying it, those monochrome stripes really do add a striking aesthetic to the landscapes, they’re beautiful, however, after your third or fourth zebra sighting you’re just not that bothered anymore….“no shortage of zebra in Kenya” as a fellow traveller so eloquently put it.

Thing is, there are zillions of zebra ev–ery–where across the national parks. I’m sure they’re probably very interesting if you take the time to get to know their little quirks (maybe), but when there are big cats to seek out and majestic elephants to gaze at, zebras don’t really get much of a look-in.

Even giraffes become a bit ‘oh yeah another one’ after a while lol, but I’d say giraffes will still turn your head, they did mine, I mean, they’re just such a magnificent creation aren’t they!!

Zebra spotlight

I’ll take back everything I just said about zebra fatigue during the moment captured in the photograph above. We stopped for ages watching the zebra here…(why, I hear you ask??) because they were all gathered waiting for one brave zebra to take the plunge through a small opening in those thick trees….“once one goes the rest will follow” but there could be danger waiting in those trees, lions would be the zebra’s worst nightmare!!! One zebra kept acting like it was about to go through – the others were watching ready follow. We waited long enough, no moves were made, they were still tentative so we agreed to keep things moving and drove off.

That’s the thing on safari, sometimes you might wait and wait and nothing happens. Other times, you might witness a priceless moment – you just never know. I guess this is the sort of dilemma wildlife photographers and documentary makers have to deal with all the time….patiently waiting.

By the end of day one, as we raced back to the Amboseli National Park gates to leave and head back to the lodge……. every time we saw an elephant we wanted our driver to stop, but he was more or less like….“we’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll see even more elephants, don’t worry, we need to go now before they lock the gates”

When you’ve never experienced the ‘awesomeness’ of it all before it feels a bit like a parent telling a child they can’t have anymore sweets until tomorrow lol. Honestly, it was an incredible start to my main safari experience and as sleep deprived as I was, I couldn’t wait to be back in that safari vehicle at an eye watering 7am the next morning for more!!!

In the next post we’ll head up to Lake Naivasha National Park.