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At Verdoro Safaris, we are committed to providing you with an unforgettable safari experience. Our tailored packages and expert guides ensure that your journey through Amboseli National Park is nothing short of extraordinary.
Spending time with elephants has an inexplicable magical quality. Nothing in the world can compare to the ethereal emotions experienced in their presence: a sophisticated sense of old wisdom and profound intellect. Elephants, probably more than any other animal, embody a wild sense of the sublime. This is never more evident than at Amboseli National Park, where these massive beasts stand against the background of ice-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, one of Africa’s most famous vistas.
Amboseli National Park, formerly known as Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, encompasses just 392 square kilometers (39,206 hectares) in Kenya’s Kajiado County. However, the park is an important component of the much larger Greater Amboseli ecosystem (also known as the Amboseli-Tsavo-Kilimanjaro ecosystem or other iterations thereof). This region includes Amboseli, the Chyulu Hills, Tsavo East and West, Mount Kilimanjaro National Park, and all in between. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak, is only 50 kilometers to the southeast in neighboring Tanzania, and its enormous bulk dominates the Amboseli skyline on clear mornings. Enkongo Narok, Ol Tukai, and Olokeya are three of the park’s major wetlands, which are home to a diverse range of animals.
Despite its modest size, Amboseli provides outstanding animal watching due to the mix of sparse, dry vegetation and abundant water in the marshes. However, the park’s most famous occupants are the elephants, who live in vast numbers and have some of Africa’s biggest bodies and tusks.Elephants may be seen all throughout Amboseli, enjoying the marsh waters, walking dusty paths lead by a trustworthy matriarch, or occasionally posing against the backdrop of Kilimanjaro for awestruck, camera-wielding tourists.
This alone is enough to send tourists home happy, having gained a new understanding for Africa’s largest land mammal, but the elephants of Amboseli have another claim to fame. Many of these herds and bulls have been the focus of the longest-running study of elephant behavior in the wild. The Amboseli Elephant Research Project, founded by Cynthia Moss and Harvey Croze and run by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, has spent five decades investigating and monitoring Amboseli’s elephants. Individual herds’ life histories have been methodically chronicled over decades, greatly contributing to our understanding of elephant behavior and herd connections.
While elephants may be the major attraction, the park’s other animals never fail to offer a powerful, supporting performance. Lumbering hippos wallow in the shallows of the marshes and lakes during the day, emerging to scythe their way across the park when the heat fades. Zebra and wildebeest herds dominate the grasslands, while timid gerenuks nibble at the legs of towering giraffes.
In the past, Amboseli’s predator species, notably lions, bore the brunt of human-wildlife conflict and anger stemming from the park’s complicated history. Fortunately, thorough conservation efforts and collaboration with local communities are yielding dividends. While lion populations across Africa have dropped, lion numbers in Amboseli have steadily increased over the last decade. Visitors are now treated to frequent glimpses of Africa’s biggest cat.
Amboseli’s unusual combination of semi-arid savanna and marshlands draws a variety of birds, with over 420 species documented (including, improbably, a shoebill). Spending time in the marshes may reward a keen-eyed birder with the pale flash of an endangered Malagasy pond heron among the lanky egrets, herons, and gray-crowned cranes. The grasslands hide the loud Pangani longclaws, while the vachellia trees conceal dry region species like as steel-blue whydahs and Von der Decken’s hornbills.
Want to go on a safari in Amboseli? Scroll down to the end of this post to browse lodges, look for ready-made packages, or contact our travel staff to book your safari.
Given the spectacular animal sightings available and the greatest views of Kilimanjaro in Kenya, it’s no surprise that Amboseli is Kenya’s most popular safari location after the Maasai Mara. The peak visitor season corresponds with the dry season, which offers possibly the finest wildlife viewing since animals concentrate around accessible water. However, this means dealing with increasing prices and visitor densities. The two wet seasons – brief rains from November to December and lengthy rains from March to May – can make navigating the park and observing animals difficult. However, with the dust reduced, the view is undoubtedly at its most magnificent.
The weather in Amboseli is often hot and dry, and the park’s closeness to the Equator assures rather stable temperatures. Naturally, sun protection is essential, as are malaria prevention measures.
