We went to the park gate to ask about entry - the Kenyan Wildlife Service staff couldn't have been friendlier or more helpful. They pointed out that we could purchase a 24 hour entry which would allow us to visit in the afternoon and again the fillowing morning, allowing us to get what would effectively be 2 days worth of viewing from one purchase (spending a whole day from 6am to 6pm wildlife viewing is very tiring, splitting it gives a much more relaxed experience). We purchased 24 hours worth and went in.
Amboseli is a relatively small park in that (certainly in the dry season) most of the animals are concentrated around or close to the water which occurs mainly in one section of the park. Talking to rangers it seems that in the wet a lot of animals leave the park entirely. The park is at the base of Kilimanjaro, so a lot of the time you can not only have great animal sightings, but with what is probably one of the greatest moutain sceneries as background! There is a small hill next to the lake with a viewpoint on the top - the view from there is quite breathtaking with lush green marshes with elephants and hippos up to their ears in vegetation, zebra and buffalo on the green grasses surrounding the marshland and the blue lake in the centre with white pelicans drifting past.
The park roads are quite good so long as you avoid the "main road" through the park which is quite corrugated by speeding vehicles, the people who work there are really friendly - even the guy sweeping the path leading up Observation Hill was full of information and willing to spend time chatting. The park definitely doesn't feel as "wild" as some other places we've been (ie Hwange, Okavango), but it's really quite easy to visit and therefore very relaxing.
We tried to stay within a few km of the marsh/lake and were rewarded over the next 4 days (the first 2 days were so good we decided to do it all over again) with some great sightings including a small lion pride (a female plus 2 adolescents) starting a hunt, a cheetah keeping cool under a bush, another serval, an african wildcat, hyena, large amounts of elephant plus the other usual contenders. At one point we watched a group of elephants chasing a baby elephant off, most strange, adults were actually attacking the baby and tossing it in the air at one point. They chased it out of sight, seemed to calm down, but the baby was still hanging around just out of range.
We spent either the morning or afternoon in the park with the rest of the time at the camspite relaxing (or in Sue's case updating her bird list).
Our campsite spot was under a large Acacia tree - complete with various nests including sparrow weavers that make a "beepy squeaking" call and semi-resident White-Bellied Go-Away birds that make "wah" noises. As a backdrop we had Kilimanjaro complete with it's snow-capped peak. One morning we were sitting outside when a different bird flew into the tree then started moving from one sparrow weavers nest to the next. We had a closer look and Sue pronounced it to be a Gabars Goshawk - it was clearly looking for a nest with chicks to raid. We watched it for some time, took some photos, then as it had chosen a victim's nest and started to pull strws from the top to gain access I set up the new "small camera" on a tripod to video what happened next.....
After a while the goshawk got what it wanted with the chick giving a final "cheep" and was gone in a flash. Sue had a look at the camera and got rid of all the photos that weren't any good, leaving just the best....later that day I downloaded the camera to have a better look - no video - it had accidentally been deleted.....oh well.
An elephant walked through camp one afternoon - so quietly that not even the local Masaai had noticed it - I only spotted it because I was standing in the door of the box with an elevated view - it just quietly walked through on its way back towards the park having been for a drink. Around the campsite we saw quite a lot of eles, zebra, wildebeest and even giraffe.
Most of the time here it was far too hot to cook, luckily we had bought a big bag of tomatoes on the road (the seller started off at 100 shillings, but when he clearly remembered that he needed to ask for a "Mzungu" price instantly corrected himself to 200. We paid 100 and he was happy), so we had tomatoe and onion salad and various combinations thereof for some time. Lesson for the future - when it's hot - buy food that doesn't need cooking! We discovered that quite a high proportion of our canned stores were out of date or nearing expiry - as a result we've been trying to eat them up, this has resulted in a few bizarre combinations but in general as worked well (and no illness so far!). Luckily there are now some good supermarkets around Arusha (a new Nakumatt in the town centre in place of the old Pick-and-Pay, the new International out beyond the International School and Rafika's a bit further out), so we'll be able to restock there.
We took so many photos while at Amboseli that rather than include them here there is a page full of them in the photos section under Kenya/Amboseli at http://turnleftatcairo.weebly.com/amboseli.html
Amboseli is a relatively small park in that (certainly in the dry season) most of the animals are concentrated around or close to the water which occurs mainly in one section of the park. Talking to rangers it seems that in the wet a lot of animals leave the park entirely. The park is at the base of Kilimanjaro, so a lot of the time you can not only have great animal sightings, but with what is probably one of the greatest moutain sceneries as background! There is a small hill next to the lake with a viewpoint on the top - the view from there is quite breathtaking with lush green marshes with elephants and hippos up to their ears in vegetation, zebra and buffalo on the green grasses surrounding the marshland and the blue lake in the centre with white pelicans drifting past.
The park roads are quite good so long as you avoid the "main road" through the park which is quite corrugated by speeding vehicles, the people who work there are really friendly - even the guy sweeping the path leading up Observation Hill was full of information and willing to spend time chatting. The park definitely doesn't feel as "wild" as some other places we've been (ie Hwange, Okavango), but it's really quite easy to visit and therefore very relaxing.
We tried to stay within a few km of the marsh/lake and were rewarded over the next 4 days (the first 2 days were so good we decided to do it all over again) with some great sightings including a small lion pride (a female plus 2 adolescents) starting a hunt, a cheetah keeping cool under a bush, another serval, an african wildcat, hyena, large amounts of elephant plus the other usual contenders. At one point we watched a group of elephants chasing a baby elephant off, most strange, adults were actually attacking the baby and tossing it in the air at one point. They chased it out of sight, seemed to calm down, but the baby was still hanging around just out of range.
We spent either the morning or afternoon in the park with the rest of the time at the camspite relaxing (or in Sue's case updating her bird list).
Our campsite spot was under a large Acacia tree - complete with various nests including sparrow weavers that make a "beepy squeaking" call and semi-resident White-Bellied Go-Away birds that make "wah" noises. As a backdrop we had Kilimanjaro complete with it's snow-capped peak. One morning we were sitting outside when a different bird flew into the tree then started moving from one sparrow weavers nest to the next. We had a closer look and Sue pronounced it to be a Gabars Goshawk - it was clearly looking for a nest with chicks to raid. We watched it for some time, took some photos, then as it had chosen a victim's nest and started to pull strws from the top to gain access I set up the new "small camera" on a tripod to video what happened next.....
After a while the goshawk got what it wanted with the chick giving a final "cheep" and was gone in a flash. Sue had a look at the camera and got rid of all the photos that weren't any good, leaving just the best....later that day I downloaded the camera to have a better look - no video - it had accidentally been deleted.....oh well.
An elephant walked through camp one afternoon - so quietly that not even the local Masaai had noticed it - I only spotted it because I was standing in the door of the box with an elevated view - it just quietly walked through on its way back towards the park having been for a drink. Around the campsite we saw quite a lot of eles, zebra, wildebeest and even giraffe.
Most of the time here it was far too hot to cook, luckily we had bought a big bag of tomatoes on the road (the seller started off at 100 shillings, but when he clearly remembered that he needed to ask for a "Mzungu" price instantly corrected himself to 200. We paid 100 and he was happy), so we had tomatoe and onion salad and various combinations thereof for some time. Lesson for the future - when it's hot - buy food that doesn't need cooking! We discovered that quite a high proportion of our canned stores were out of date or nearing expiry - as a result we've been trying to eat them up, this has resulted in a few bizarre combinations but in general as worked well (and no illness so far!). Luckily there are now some good supermarkets around Arusha (a new Nakumatt in the town centre in place of the old Pick-and-Pay, the new International out beyond the International School and Rafika's a bit further out), so we'll be able to restock there.
We took so many photos while at Amboseli that rather than include them here there is a page full of them in the photos section under Kenya/Amboseli at http://turnleftatcairo.weebly.com/amboseli.html