As advertised, our flight back to Nairobi from Masai Mara was only a bit less bumpy than the roads – but, at least, it was shorter.
There, we ate lunch, then loaded into a second set of vans for the drive to Amboseli [ditto on the roads]. We’d seen so much already, I wondered, frankly, what else there was to see. Amboseli is on the Kenyan border in the shade of Mount Kilimanjaro [in Tanzania]. It was once a salt lake long gone dry. Ancient eruptions of the now extinct Kilimanjaro covered it with ash and lava rock – so it’s now an arid, salty, dusty desert. They kept talking about "the swamps," but as we drove in, I didn’t see any swamps that I recognized, only a wooded area in the desert where the lodges were located. In Masai Mara, we’d lived in very nice tents with floors and full bathrooms. But Amboseli Serena was a sure enough African Lodge, complete with [unordered and frequent] room service from the resident black-faced monkeys..
I’d skip the early morning visit to the Masai village and go straight to the amazing terrain itself – but it was just too interesting to skip.
All "Game Park" means in Africa is an area where no one lives. They lease lands to the Lodges and charge an entrance fee, but the only government staff is at the gate and some Rangers that police for poaching. In Amboseli, this Maasai Clan is allowed to stay. The trade off is to show their village to tourists, and then sell their trinkets. At first, I expected it to be a Tourist show [like the American Cherokee in the Smokies with rubber tomahawks and Pawnee headresses], but that was not the case. We saw plenty of settlements like this all along our route. The top picture is Mount Kilimanjaro over the top of the village. Gone are Hemingway’s "Snows." There’s only a thin glacier that will be gone in 15 years [I wonder why?]. The huts are built and repaired by the women from sticks and cow dung mixed with dirt. The picture on the left is me is the "bedroom," with no flash. Joseph and his family are in the flash photo on the right. No, it doesn’t smell like dung. Joseph explained that the boards are because it is now against the law to cut trees in Kenya, so they supplement the gathered sticks with "timbers." Meanwhile, Joseph’s brother [the two of them have been to mission school and function as teachers] had assembled their students who treated us to a robust chorus of "I love Jesus. He’s my Savior." Then, using a stick in the dirt, they solved fairly complex arithmetic problems, sang the days of the week, the months, and their ABC’s. It was really pretty impressive. Finally, the men did their traditional jumpy-up-and-impress-the-girls dance, and we all retired to the back lot to bargain for trinkets. Pretty cool…
I used so many pictures in my last post, this time I’m only going to show a few that demonstrate why Amboseli is so interesting [It also has most of the animals shown previosly]. So we’re driving down the road through this desert populated mostly by dirt devils, then we begin to see what the swamp is.
The swamp consists of shallow lakes that are fed year-around through underground aquifers coming from Mount Kilimanjaro, rich with vegitation. Further down the road, they get bigger and bigger. These next two pictures are from a single place where the road runs right along the swamp.
I’m going to let this picture stand for a host of others. The place is literally a Garden of Eden in the midst of the desert, teeming with life. Grazing animals line the edges while herds of the big fellows walk through the middle of it. The map shows the extent of the swamps [the Lake is not a lake in the dry season – just more swamp].
One thing that the pictures can’t show – Amboseli is a much calmer place. We saw very few predators. Lions like cover, and there weren’t any trees around for shade. Cheetahs like a heavy grass cover for camouflage – none of that either. That said, we did visit a remarkable Hyena den out away from the swamp.
I’m not really big on bird watching, so I’m leaving them out. But it was in Amboseli that I saw my first ever Lilac Breasted Roller, a real looker. I’m sure I’ll remember that one. When I think back on the swamps and the wildlife in this Garden of Eden with the herds of Elephants up to their shoulders in the lush greenery, I think the thing that will stick with me is those four guys sitting out in the desert guarding their calf. And I think I’ll always wonder how it came out…
WOW! As a Milton teacher, I have only read about the Garden of Eden, never really seen one.
Anna
Safari was actually born in East Africa Kenya and Tanzania. You can easily see why when you visit Kenya and amboseli, masai mara. Well great pictures too.