Adventures in Africa: Amboseli National Park Afternoon Game Drive, Kenya

Around 15:30 my guide Isaac and I headed out of Sungura camp and to the Amboseli National Park gate. 

At the gate the registration process seems quite involved, but I spent my time watching the warthogs while Isaac dealt with registration. This was my first time seeing the warthogs, and it was pretty cool to watch them up close! There appeared to be two mothers with their respective young grazing on the grass. 

One of the funny things about these animals is that they kneel on their front legs to reach the grass, and they even end up walking on these kneeled legs as they move along.

Here is some video.

I was kneeling as I took the video below, attempting to get a better angle. Evidently at some point mama was unhappy with where I was, and she moved towards me somewhat aggressively, which startled me and my startled movement made her even more uncomfortable!

By the way, this is the van I am using for this trip. The roof pops up, but is not yet popped here.

It was 16:00 by the time we passed through the park gate, and this is one of the best times of day to be in the park because the elephants in particular are on the move in the hours before darkness. Of course, everyone comes to Amboseli to see animals, and especially the elephants, but the scenery itself is quite beautiful. 

Besides the scenery, in our first half hour in the park we saw some antelope, zebra, and (my first) wildebeest, but none of them were especially close to the road. Then, probably while still a kilometre away I could see the first elephants. Many other safari vehicles had arrived much earlier than us, but we arrived just as the herd was crossing the road.

For the most part I only got to see them from behind here, but I was thrilled to be seeing elephants in person!

The elephants spend their days in the park because water is plentiful, even in the dry season. They drink water, of course, but they also appreciate it for keeping cool in the hottest part of the day. For example, further along we stopped at a spot where the elephants wallow in the swamp, apparently for hours, keeping cool. In some cases at least they have their bodies more than halfway immersed in the water. There did seem to be an entire family wallowing here, but they were very spread out, perhaps over as much as four square kilometres. I understand they will assemble as the evening sets in and march out of the park as the family that we had seen earlier were doing. 

There was at least one hippo in the swamp, too, but it was well into the water as well and I could not get a photograph. 

After the swamp we drove past what used to be a lodge in the park and has now been taken over by vegetation--and monkeys!

We came across one of these vervet monkeys on the side of the road.

And just a little further along, a few more monkeys relaxing in the rapidly cooling afternoon.

After the monkeys we headed to a spot where my guide had heard lions had been spotted; we did not see the lions here, but there were more elephants, including this large bull elephant. The bulls tend to keep to themselves.

Across the road from where the bull was grazing was another family.

This family was gradually climbing out of the water as we watched. Here is a video of one of them hauling itself out of the swamp.

As we were moving away from this elephant herd I saw a hyena for the first time. I only got about one second of video of it, but it was a pretty good view for the brief moment I saw it.

The next elephant encounter was the last of our day, but also the best. A family was heading out of the park and we reached it as they were approaching the road.

Besides our proximity, what made this encounter so interesting was that at some point the matriarch obviously sensed danger, and so she had the family stop and close ranks around the young. I took a video but it is too large to post. The matriarch seems to clearly move her head to send off one of the other adults towards some nearby brush. The other adult charges into the brush, making noise and evidently attempting to drive away whatever it is they feel threatened by. I do not know if this was an hyena pack or a lion or something else, but after about a minute or two it seems the danger was dealt with because the matriarch relaxed and once again began leading the family across the road . . .

. . . and literally into the sunset.

My next wildlife encounter in Amboseli occurred courtesy of another safari guide who managed to spot a male lion maybe 100 hundred metres away between the two bushes below.

The quality is very poor, but you can see him moving the video below.

Eventually the lion got up and started walking calmly easteward. We drove forward to stay with him, but he never got much closer. So, I do not have any good photos or video, but it was great to watch him from a distance anyway. I had seen two female lions in Nairobi National Park, but this was the first time I got to see a male.

Once we were done watching the lion it was nearly 19:00 and getting too dark to see much more, so we headed out of the park and back to Sungura Camp for the night.