Amboseli National Park

So I went on my first safari this weekend, and it was absolutely amazing. I spent two days in Amboseli National Park, which is right near the border with Tanzania, in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. Justice, our driver, was quite a bit more knowledgeable than Elvis, our driver from last week. He really knew the park, which at 1,260 square miles, is quite a bit bigger than Nairobi National Park. Also, he had a radio to talk to other drivers about sightings of the animals that are more rare and harder to spot. The two times that we saw cheetahs, just about every minibus and jeep in the park seemed to appear out of nowhere.


The good thing about Amboseli, though, is that vehicles have to stick to the roads, so if the animals want to get away from people, they can. There are some other parks where I’ve heard that the vehicles pretty much chase the animals everywhere. I couldn’t imagine having very much fun if I felt like I was harassing the animals, so Amboseli was a good fit for me. The cheetahs, for example, stuck around for a little while and then ran off to part of the park that was farther away from the roads.

It was really interesting to watch the other animals’ reaction to the cheetahs. I kind of assumed that all of the smaller animals would scatter as soon as they saw the cheetahs approach. They didn’t, but they became very, very alert as soon as the cheetahs arrived on the scene and just sort of stood perfectly still and watched them intently. The cheetahs moved very regally, but nonchalantly, if that makes sense – it was like they knew they owned the place.

The cheetahs were probably the coolest sighting of the weekend, but I also really liked the Thompson’s Gazelles. They’re pretty small and really cute, and they constantly wag their tails (I’m guessing to keep the flies away). But while other animals kind of swish their tales (like elephants and zebras), the Thompson’s Gazelles really wag theirs, and because of that and their coloring, they kind of reminded me of Ladybug (right after she’s come home from the groomer’s and has really short fur).


Anyway, in no particular order, here are the animals that we saw this weekend: elephants, zebras, cheetahs, wildebeests, warthogs, impalas, jackals, Thompson’s Gazelles, egrets, heron, cranes, pelicans, giraffe, ostriches, water buffalo, monkeys, and a whole bunch of birds I couldn’t identify.

A couple of things I didn’t realize: zebra are fat – you can’t tell when you look at them from the side, but if you see them from the front or the back, they’ve got huge potbellies, and wildebeests are really, really scary looking.

What else can I say? We camped at a small campsite inside the park (it was surrounded by an electric fence to keep out any animals that might want to try and eat us in our sleep). At night, I saw more stars than I’ve seen in I can’t even remember how long. And on the second day, we got a glimpse of Kilimanjaro, which is pretty rare, because it’s normally covered by clouds. They parted for about 20 minutes though, and we got to see the snow-capped peak. (Which had quite a bit less snow on it than I was expecting. Insert plug here for An Inconvenient Truth.)

I took over a hundred photos, but these are some of the highlights. I’ll try to upload the rest to a photo-sharing website and e-mail you guys the link when I do. (My internet connection isn’t that great here, so it might take a while).

OK, that’s it for now. Hope all is well! (Oh, and I just realized today that I've been here for a month already -- I can't believe it, the time has totally flown by)!