Amboseli National Park
 |
| Amboseli Air Strip |
Our first safari camp in Kenya bordered the Kitrua private conservancy (30,000 acres) and was located in Amboseli National Park (39,000 acres). This location permitted us to view wildlife in both conservancy and park. We generally prefer visiting private conservancies as there are fewer safari vehicles compared to National Parks. Plus, safari vehicles in conservancies are not restricted to driving on existing roads when following wildlife - as are vehicles in National Parks.
We reached Amboseli air strip from Wilson Airport, in Nairobi. The Safarilink turbo-prop flight time was about 40 minutes.
Elewana Tortilas Camp
We stayed in a tent at the
Elewana Tortilas Camp, located on the western edge of Amboseli National Park. Our tent had a king bed, en suite bathroom, electricity, WIFI and covered veranda. The camp also had an in-ground pool. The main dining room and reception area were large permanent structures with thatched roofs. The canvas tent tops were also covered with thatched roofs. The tents were well-maintained, clean and provided a very comfortable stay.
Breakfast and lunches were a buffet and dinner was via a daily ala carte menu. Game drive breakfasts were also available. Our stay was a full board program, so game drives, tent, dining, drinks and laundry were all included. The food was delicious and the dinners varied each night. Tortilas provides a pre-morning game drive wake-up at your tent, serving coffee/tea and cookies.
The camp had its own vegetable garden, solar panel array, provided both aluminum water bottles and purified water. It was advised not to brush teeth with tap water. The camp was surrounded by electrical fencing, so there was no need to seek staff escorts when walking in the dark, as we moved between our tent and main dining area in the early morning or after dinner. We needed to secure the vertical and horizontal tent entry zipper pulls with a carabiner as we were told that monkeys had learned to open tent zippers but not carabiners.
We noted that when it came time to leave each camp, the camp manager confirmed our next safari flight time and made sure we arrived at the air strip in plenty of time for our departure.
 |
| Exterior of Tent #11 |
 |
| Elena Tortilas Camp Tent |
 |
| Bar and Lobby |
 |
Dining Room
|
On Safari in Amboseli
We stayed two nights in Amboseli, which provided two late afternoon game drives (4pm-7:30pm) and one early morning game drive (6am-10am). The early game drive included a bush breakfast.
There are a wide number of habitats in this area, swamps, open savannah grasses, dry plains, rocky and bushy vegetation and woodlands. Thus, a wide variety of wildlife can be seen here. This includes elephants, hippos, giraffe, wildebeest, ostriches, Cape buffalo, zebras, dik-dik, and many bird species. We also were periodically rewarded with the peeks of Kilimanjaro's 19.000 foot summit.
 |
Our Safari Vehicle
|
.jpeg) |
| Visiting a Masai Village |
 |
| Common Zebra |
.jpeg) |
| Masai Ostrich with "Pink" Neck |
.jpeg) |
| Time for a "Sundowner" |
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
No comments:
Post a Comment