Amboseli NP and Mt Kilimanjaro

 A giraffe posing appropriately in front of Kilimanjaro.

 Hyena greeting.

 Elephants passing between us and the mountain.

 A tawny eagle.

 A bat eared fox.

 Elephants on the move looking for a drink.

 Morris, our driver and Joseph our guide.

 A giraffe having a drink

 The beautiful pool.

 No it's not a two headed ostrich.

 A lion romance.

The end of a great day!

Thursday, October 5^th.

Today was a fantastic day. It started out when I opened my door and looked at the beautiful clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro as the sun was coming up and found that it was snow covered. The inclement weather on the summit was bad luck for the climbers but good luck for us. When we arrived yesterday there was very little snow visible but this morning the summit was white. We heard from our waiter and our driver that we were very lucky to be seeing the mountain so clearly. Apparently lots of times it is obscured by clouds. Looking at it gave me some very strong memories and feelings.

After breakfast we started on our game drive in Amboseli National Park, which became a NP in 1974. It is 392 square kilometres and it houses 1500 elephants as well as thousands of zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, buffalo and antelopes, but it is not fenced. As a result the elephant, which are migratory depending on water and food sources, wander out of the park and come in contact with the farmers and ranchers that live surrounding the park. This causes stress for both the animals and the people. The game park rangers try to buffer the problem and educate the people and the government reimburses people for their losses.

As we drove into the park we noticed how dry and dusty it was. The trucks, animals and wind whip up a very fine dust that Joseph calls safari powder. We came across a couple of animals we had not yet seen, a black backed jackal and a bat eared fox.

We had Mount Kilimanjaro as a backdrop on our left hand side and we were able to get amazing shots of the mountain with secaia trees in the foreground and then we came across a giraffe and Morris positioned the truck perfectly so that the giraffe walked between us and the summit for an iconic type photo that you seen when you type in Kilimanjaro on Google. This is one of the reasons that I wanted to do this National Geographic tour because it came to this park. People climb the mountain from the Tanzanian side but the best views of the mountain are from the NP on the Kenyan side. Shortly after that we saw two hyenas approaching each other and watched as the greeted each other with one clearly being submissive to the other.

Then it got even better as a family herd of elephants led by the matriach came along and again I got photos of the mountain with elephants in front. I also took an excellent video of the family passing in front of the mountain. Exactly what I wanted to see. We also saw some vultures, pelicans in flight, ostriches and other animals. It was amazing.

Then Joseph took us to another lodge for a washroom break and here we could watch from their pool area as another herd of elephants walked by on their way to the marsh for a drink. After that we drove for another hour before heading back to our lodge for lunch, after which we had a few hours of free time to enjoy the beautiful pool or whatever we liked. Chris and I swam in the pool and had a yack.

We reconvened at 4:00 for our evening game drink. Most of this was more of the same types of animals and we had wide open vistas of the plains with plenty of animals. We watched another herd of elephants approach the road and it attracted a number of other vehicles which jockeyed for position. We got a flat tire here and Morris and Joseph had to repair while keeping an eye on the elephants.

When we left there we finally found a male lion lying in the distance with his lioness. Without my zoom lens I would not have got any shots. We watched as they got romantic a few times and then we drove back to the lodge for an hour long presentation on conservation of the elephants in the park and the challenges (farmers, poachers, people pollution and global warming).

After that we had dinner and said our thanks to Joseph. David made the presentation and a short speech thanking him and Morris on our behalf. Then it was off to our rooms for the night.