2011 Adventure aka Our Honeymoon:Days 11 & 12

For our last park, we headed back to Kenya for Amboseli. I was very excited because the park is famous for huge elephant herds. MH was excited because this was the closest we got to Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, all the excitement was burned up in our long wait at the border. Our guide's car broke down, so we were waiting at the border for two hours! Combined with the long drive, we were exhausted and glossed over the multiple herds of elephants crossing the swampy land.

Rare cloud-free view of Kilimanjaro

Yes, I said swamp in africa! Apparently the soil conditions cause all the water to come down off Kilimanjaro underground, and then it springs up in Amboseli. We could actually see the water bubbling up from the ground. As you know, water brings plants, and plants bring animals- in this case lots of elephants and hippos.

Hippo snacking/playing with lunch.

We were lucky that the weather was cool enough that the hippos were active during the day- usually they simply float around.

Young elephants playing

Of all the elephants we saw, this place had the biggest. Even the babies were the size of a car. Check out this lady:

Bigger than a land cruiser.

Our lodge was like a flashback in bad animal conservation. We were told, "you have to see the animal show at 9pm". We decide to check it out, and it turns out the show is the bartender putting meat scraps on a rock for the neighboring animals. Since we know feeding wild animals is a cardinal sin against keeping animals wild, so we left in disgust (were we being hippies? not really). At this point in our trip, we had been waking up early, driving for many hours, baking in the sun, and needed a rest...

Despite the unsual entertainment, the lodge was nice and the park was a great closure to our safari adventure. We were also fortunate enough to see some rare animals.

Fringe-eared Oryx (only oryx we saw during our trip)

Eland (one of two we saw).

Elands are the largest antelope in Africa. It was about the size of a young moose or small car.

This was the end of our safari adventure. We were lucky enough to see a wide variety of environs, the Big Five, and many other great animals! Next, we head to Nairobi for dinner and then our flight to exotic Zanzibar.