the elephants and other Amboseli National Park, Kenya Things to Do Tips

Amboseli is famous for its huge number of elephants. The African elephant is the largest living land animal and weighs up to 5,400 kg. Besides its greater size, it differs from the Asian elephant in having larger ears and tusks, a sloping forehead, and two “fingers” at the tip of its trunk, compared to only one in the Asian elephants trunk.
Elephants are vegetarians and consume more than 225 kg plants a day, to achieve that amount they are eating for about 18 hours a day. Elephants live inherds of females and yongsters. The older males are solitairy.

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In Amboseli we encountered quite a few lions. A male lion is 1.2m tall at the shoulders and weighs up to 200 kilo. Females are slightly smaller and weigh about 130 kg. Lions prey mainly on large animals such as zebra, wildebeest, buffalo and even giraffe. The lionesses of the pride hunt as a team.
In the picture you see a liones that has killed and eaten recently, the bloodstains are still visible on her legs and head.

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After the lions killed and have eaten the bulk, the scavengers come in. Hyenas first, jackal and vultures trying to steel something.

We witnessed this feast for a while, the hyena chased the other animals away while it was eating. The jackal stole some small bits. When the hyena stopped eating, because it was full, the vultures started. And more vultures arrived from everywhere. The vultures chased the jackal away. The marabu, tough looking big and strong had to wait untill virtually nothing was left...

More pictures of this meal in the travelogue.

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Tired of all the animals? You can visit a Masai village for some culture.....
The village is located in the Amboseli Park. We were welcomed by Richard, who was in charge, he also collected the entrance fee of 1000 Shilling (about 15 US$).
Then there was a welcomesong and dance by the entire village. Richard told us all about the cattle, the village and their lives. We were allowed to see the inside of one house. Only 6 of us at one time, because it is very small.
Then we were brought to the back of the compound to see some souvenirs (and they would like us to buy it for ridiculous high prices)
The last stop was the small schoolbuilding. Richard here told us the school was not finished yet, and he could use our money........

It was a bit of a commercial experience, we felt like we were a bag of money they wanted to open. The story about the Masai not wanting to obey to the government, and therefor not getting any money to built their school, was not very convincing. (They don't pay taxes to that government either, so the entrancefee is all for them)

But it was nice to see something else and it was certainly a great oppertunity to take pictures of the Masai people. Our pictures can be found in the travelogue at our Rift Valley Province page.

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Observation Hill is locally known as Noomotio. This means hollow point that can hold water. When you climb to the top of this hill, you will understand why.

The hill is made out of vulcanic material, that was places here by an eruption of the Kilimanjaro long long ago.

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